Short  Histories  of  the  Literatures 
of  the  World 

Edited  by  Edmund  Gosse 


LITERATURES   OF   THE   WORLD. 

Edited  by  EDMUND  QOSSE, 

Hon.  M.  A.  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

A  succession  of  attractive  volumes  dealing  with  the  his- 
tory of  literature  in  each  country.  Each  volume  will  contain 
about  three  hundred  and  fifty  i2mo  pages,  and  will  treat  an 
entire  literature,  giving  a  uniform  impression  of  its  develop- 
ment, history,  and  character,  and  of  its  relation  to  previous 
and  to  contemporary  work. 

Each,   i2mo,   cloth,  $1.50. 
NOW    READY. 

RUSSIAN   LITERATURE.     By  K.  Waliszewski. 
BOHEMIAN    LITERATURE.      By   Fkancis,  Count  LOtzow, 

author  of  "  Bohemia:  An  Historical  Sketch." 
JAPANESE  LITERATURE.     By   W.    G     Aston,  C.  M.  G., 

M,  A.,  late  Acting  Secretary  at  the  British  Legation  at  Tokio. 

SPANISH  LITERATURE.  By  J.  Fitzmaukice-Kelly,  Mem- 
ber of  the  Spanish  Academy. 

ITALIAN  LITERATURE.  By  Richard  GAimExt,  C.  B., 
LL  D.,  Keeper  of  Printed  Books  in  the  British  Museum. 

ANCIENT  GREEK  LITERATURE.  By  Gilbert  Murray, 
M.  A.,  Professor  of  Greek  in  the  University  of  Glasgow. 

FRENCH  LITERATURE.  By  Edward  Dowden,  D.  C.  L., 
LL.  D.,  Professor  of  English  Literature  at  the  University  of 
Dublin. 

MODERN  ENGLISH   LITERATURE.     By  the  Editor. 

IN    PREPARATION. 

American  Literature.  By  Prof.  W.  P.  Trent,  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  the  Sou'-h. 

German  Literature. 

Hungarian  Literature.  By  Dr.  Zoltan  BeSthy,  Professor 
of  Hungarian  Literature  at  the  University  of  Budapest. 

Latin  Literature.  By  Dr.  Arthur  Woolgar-Verraix,  Fellow 
and  Senior  Tutor  of  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

Modern  Scandinavian  Literature.  By  Dr.  Georg  Brandes, 
of  Copenhagen. 

Sanskrit  Literature.  By  A.  A.  Macdonell,  M.  A.,  Deputy 
Boden  Professor  of  Sanskrit  at  the  University  of  Oxford. 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY,  NEW  YORK. 


A  HISTORY  OF 


RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 


BY 


K.   WALISZEWSKI 

AUTHOR   OF    THE   ROMANCE   OF    AN    EMPRESS, 
PETER   THE   GREAT,    ETC. 


y 


OF  TL..,  .       , 

UNIVERSITY 

califor^ 


NEW    YORK 

D.    APPLETON    AND    COMPANY 

1900 


Authorized  Edition 
1  6-4-/0 


TfV35 


PREFACE 


In  the  year  1834  the  great  Bielinski,  on  his  maiden 
appearance  as  a  hterary  critic,  bestowed  the  following 
epigraph,  borrowed  from  one  of  his  fellow-critics,  Sen- 
kowski,  on  his  first  essay  : — 

''  Do  we  possess  a  literature  ?  " 
^^  No,  we  have  nothing  but  a  book-trade  ! " 
Eighteen  months  later,  he  began  to  publish  a  half- 
yearly   Review  under  this  somewhat  confusing  title, — 
Nothings  about  Nothing. 

Hence  we  may  conceive  what  the  country  of  Pouch- 
kine,  of  Gogol,  of  Tourgueniev,  and  of  Tolstoi  has  gained 
by  the  labour  of  the  past  half-century. 

For  this  labour  has  not  confined  itself  to  the  amass- 
ing of  a  treasure-house  of  conceptions,  exquisite  or 
stately.  It  has  endowed  the  nation  that  conceived  them, 
and  Bielinski  himself  as  well,  with  the  conscious  pos- 
session of  a  national  genius,  the  anterior  manifestations 
of  which  had  escaped  appreciation,  because  they  had 
been  judged  from  the  aesthetic  point  of  view  only, 
and  not  from  that  historical  standpoint  which  alone  be- 
fitted them.  In  Russia,  more  even  than  elsewhere,  the 
theory  of  evolution,  applied  by  Taine — in  how  brilliant 
a  manner  we  all  know — to  English  literature,  remains 
the  only  one  whereby  the  sense  of  a  literary  develop- 


vi  PREFACE 

ment  which,  during  the  march  of  history,  has  experi- 
enced such  strange  checks  and  forward  impulses,  can  be 
efficiently  revealed.  The  volume  of  the  literary  patri- 
mony of  Russia,  increasing  in  proportion  to  the  political 
fortunes  of  the  country,  attracted  first  the  curiosity,  and 
presently  the  admiration,  of  Western  Europe. 

It  is  a  far  cry,  now,  to  the  days  when  Sir  John  Bow- 
ring's  articles  in  the  Foreign  Quarterly  Review  came  as  a 
revelation.  But  the  notoriety  then  so  rapidly  acquired 
is  still  unfairly  apportioned.  The  works  of  Krylov  have 
been  translated  into  twenty-one  languages.  Those  of 
Pouchkine  still  await  a  worthy  translator,  both  in 
England,  in  France,  and  in  Germany.  Such  authors 
as  Lermontov  and  Chtchedrine  are  practically  unknown 
to  foreign  readers. 

These  special  circumstances  have  dictated  the  plan 
of  my  work.  I  have  thought  it  right  to  avoid  excessive 
generalisation.  Russian  literature  has  not  yet  acquired, 
in  the  eyes  of  the  European  public,  that  remoteness 
which  would  permit  of  my  summing  it  up  in  certain 
given  works  and  salient  figures.  I  have  likewise  felt 
unable  to  avoid  a  certain  amount  of  detail.  It  is 
not  possible  to  speak  to  English  readers  of  a  Eugene 
Onieguine,  as  I  should  speak  to  them  of  Hamlet.  My 
Russian  readers,  if  such  there  be,  will  doubtless  reproach 
me  with  having  paid  too  scant  attention  to  some  one  or 
other  of  their  favourite  authors.  My  excuse  is,  that  even 
in  such  a  book  as  this,  I  have  not  chosen  to  speak  of 
anything  save  that  which  I  personally  know,  and  am 
capable  of  judging. 


PREFACE  vii 

I  expect  to  elicit  yet  other  reproaches,  in  this  direc- 
tion. The  form  assumed,  in  the  lapse  of  time,  by  such 
personages  as  Hamlet  or  Eugene  Onieguine,  is  the  two- 
fold outcome  of  an  original  individual  conception,  and  of 
a  subsequent  and  collective  process.  These,  first  super- 
posed, become  inter-pervading,  and  end,  to  the  popular 
imagination,  in  complete  fusion.  This  collaborative 
process,  the  secret  and  existence  of  which  escape  the 
notice  of  the  great  majority,  constitutes  a  great  difficulty 
for  a  writer  addressing  a  public  other  than  that  in  the 
midst  of  which  the  types  he  evokes  have  sprung  into 
being.  Try  to  forget  all  that  the  lapse  of  years,  and 
the  action  of  endless  commentaries,  the  ingenuity,  the 
tenderness,  the  worship  of  millions  of  readers,  have  added 
and  altered,  in  such  a  figure  as  that  of  Gretchen.  You 
will  see  how  much  of  the  original  remains,  and  you  will 
realise  my  difficulty  in  speaking  to  my  readers  of  Tatiana, 
if  by  chance  (and  it  is  a  very  likely  chance)  the  charac- 
ter of  Tatiana  be  unknown  to  them.  I  dare  not  venture 
to  flatter  myself  I  have  completely  overcome  this  diffi- 
culty. 

Further,  I  do  not  close  my  eyes  to  my  own  de- 
ficiencies as  an  interpreter  between  two  worlds,  in  each 
of  which  I  myself  am  half  a  stranger.  While  other 
qualifications  for  the  part  may  fail  me,  I  bring  to  it, 
I  hope,  a  freshness  of  impression,  and  an  indepen- 
dence of  judgment,  which  may,  to  a  certain  extent, 
justify  the  Editor  of  this  series  in  the  selection  with 
which  he  has  been  good  enough  to  honour  me. 

Will   Mr.  Gosse  allow  me  to  associate  with  him,  in 


viii  PREFACE 

this  expression  of  my  gratitude,  those  Russian  friends 
who  have  helped  me  towards  the  accompHshment  of 
my  undertaking, — among  them  MM.  Onieguine  and 
Chtchoukine,  to  whom  a  double  share  of  thanks  is  due. 
Their  knowledge  and  their  couftesy  have  proved  as 
inexhaustible  as  their  libraries,  which  rank  among  the 
wonders  of  this  fair  city  of  Paris,  where  they  have  fixed 
their  home,  and  where  I  myself  have  been  so  happy  as 
to  be  able  to  write  this  book. 

K.  WALISZEWSKI. 

December  1899 


CONTENTS 


CHAP.  PAGE 

INTRODUCTION I 

I.   THE   EPIC   AGE           ....                      ...  8 

II.   THE   RENAISSANCE 47 

III.  THE   FORGING   OF  THE   LANGUAGE  .  .  .  .65 

IV.  THE   BONDAGE   OF   THE   WEST— CATHERINE    II.      .           .  S8 
V.    THE     TRANSITION      PERIOD — KARAMZINE     AND      JOU- 

KOVSKI 128 

VI.    THE   NATIONAL    EVOLUTION — POUCHKINE     .  .  -154 

VII.    THE   EMANCIPATING  MOVEMENT— THE  DOCTRINAIRES  1 89 

VIII.    LERMONTOV,   GOGOL,   AND   TOURGUENIEV      .            .           .  227 
IX.    THE      CONTROVERSIALISTS  —  HERZEN     AND     CHTCHE- 

DRINE 299 

X.    THE   PREACHERS— DOSTOIEVSKI   AND    TOLSTOI      .            .  33O 

XI.   CONTEMPORARY   LITERATURE 403 

BIBLIOGRAPHY 441 

INDEX .  447 

ix 


A   HISTORY   OF 

RUSSIAN    LITERATURE 

INTRODUCTION 

The  Slavs,  like  the  Latins,  the  Celts,  and  the  Germans, 
belong  to  the  Aryan  or  Indo-European  race.  Oppressed 
for  many  years  by  the  Western  peoples,  which  drew  the 
word  slave  from  the  appellation  "  Slav,"  scorned  by  their 
German  neighbours,  who  would  not  regard  their  race  in 
any  other  light  but  that  of  "  ethnological  matter  "  {etJino- 
/^^?>r/^^'r5/'<?^),they  probably  owed  their  inferiority  solely 
to  their  geographical  position.  Modern  civilisation,  like 
that  of  the  ancients,  built  itself  up  almost  independently  of 
the  Slavs.  Yet  they  have  raised  their  protest  against  a 
too  absolute  decree  of  exclusion,  and  they  have  right  on 
their  side.  The  Slav  nation  did  not,  indeed,  hollow  out 
the  channels  of  the  double  movement,  intellectual  or 
religious.  Renaissance  and  Reform,  from  which  the 
modern  era  issued,  but  it  opened  them  in  two  directions. 
Copernicus  and  John  Huss  were  both  Slavs. 

The  Slav  race,  the  latest  comer  into  the  world  of 
civilisation,  has  always  been  at  school,  always  under 
some  rod  or  sway.  Whether  it  be  the  Oriental  and 
material  conquest  of  the  thirteenth  century,  or  the  West- 
ern and  moral  one  of  the  eighteenth,  it  merely  under- 
goes a  change  of  masters.     Thus  the  evolution  of  the 


2  RUSSIAN    LITERATURE 

individuality  of  the  race  was  no  easy  matter.  Modern 
Russia  still  labours  at  the  task,  and  it  has  other  work  to 
do  as  well.  Modern  Russia  is  an  empire  a  thousand 
years  old,  and  a  colony,  the  age  of  which  is  not,  indeed, 
as  has  been  asserted,  that  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  years,' 
but  of  four  centuries  precisely.  And  the  colonists  of 
the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  who  recom- 
menced, in  the  neighbourhood  of  Perm  and  towards 
the  Upper  Kama,  the  interrupted  work  of  the  old  Novgo- 
rod merchants,  have  made  but  little  relative  progress. 
Odessa,  with  its  405,000  inhabitants,  dates  from  1794. 

Between  the  Novgorod  merchants  and  their  sixteenth- 
century  successors  came   the  Mongol  invasion.     This 
does  not  suffice  to  explain  the  prolonged  check  in  the 
organic  development  of  the  huge  body  which  it  left  in 
life.     Previously,  indeed,  gaps,  periodic  suppressions  of 
growth  and  evolution,  had  been  manifest,  and  they  were 
repeated  after  the  disappearance  of  this  particular  cause. 
They  would  seem  to  be  the  result  of  some  constitutional 
vice,  connected  as  much  with  race  and  climate  as  with 
the  course  of  historical  events.     Under  these  inclement 
skies,  history  appears  to  have  brought  about  an  acci- 
dental mingling  of  elements,  the  ill-controlled  action  of 
which,  when  they  chanced  to  harmonise,  gave  birth  to 
violent  outbreaks  of  energy,  while,  when  they  disagreed, 
the  result  became  apparent  in  sudden  stoppages  of  pro- 
gress.    The  outcome  has  something  of  the  American  in 
it,  and  yet  something  of  the  Turkish.    Thanks  to  its  geo- 
graphical situation  betwixt  Europe  and  Asia,  thanks  to  its 
historical  position  betwixt  a  series  of  anvils,  whereon 
the  Byzantine  priest,  the  Tartar  soldier,  and  the  German 
free-lance  have  taken  turns  to  hammer  out  its  genius, 
Russia,  young  and  old  at  once,  has  not  yet  found  its 


THE   RUSSIAN   RACE  3 

orbit  nor  its  true  balance.  Here  we  see  a  waste  ;  there 
extreme  refinement.  Men  have  called  it  rotten  ere  it 
was  ripe.  But  that  must  not  be  said.  Prematurely  ripe 
on  one  side,  indeed,  with  a  distracting  medley  of  savage 
instincts  and  ideal  aspirations,  of  intellectual  riches  and 
moral  penury.  But  Nature  must  be  given  time  to  per- 
fect her  own  work. 

There  is  much  for  her  to  do.  The  mixture  of  races, 
and  their  strugglesagainst  hostile  conditions  of  existence, 
against  the  climate,  against  foreign  invasion,  have  called 
another  problem  into  existence.  How  to  fuse  into  one 
amalgam  such  contradictory  elements  as  strength  and 
weakness,  tenacity  and  elasticity,  ruggedness  and  good- 
nature,insensibilityand kindness.  Theperpetual  struggle 
which  has  tempered  and  hardened  the  Russian  to  his 
inmost  soul  has  rendered  him  singularly  susceptible  to 
external  emotions.  He  knows — no  man  better — how  to 
suffer.  No  man  knows  better  than  he  what  suffering 
costs;  and  this  makes  him  compassionate.  Under  an 
exterior  that  is  often  coarse  enough  you  may  find  a 
man  of  infinite  tenderness.  But  press  him  not  too  far. 
Count  not  too  much  upon  him.  He  is  prone  to  terrible 
revulsions ! 

The  same  causes  have  developed  his  practical  inclina- 
tions. In  his  case — in  art  as  in  life — realism  is  no 
theory  ;  it  is  the  application  of  natural  instincts.  Even 
in  poetry  and  in  religion  the  Russian  has  a  horror  of 
abstractions.  No  metaphysical  spirit,  no  sentimentality 
whatsoever;greatresourcefulness,  perfect  tact  as  regards 
both  men  and  matters,  and  in  all  his  ideas,  his  habits, 
and  his  literature,  a  positivism  carried  to  the  point  of 
brutality.  This,  in  brief,  appears  to  me  to  be  Russian 
psychology.     But  to  all  this,  and  from  the  same  causes 


4  RUSSIAN    LITERATURE 

alwa3^s,  is  linked  a  marked  proneness  to  melancholy, 
''Sadness,  scepticism,  irony,"  said  Herzen,  **are  the 
three  strings  of  Russian  literature."  He  added,  **  Our 
laugh  is  but  a  sickly  sneer  !  "  Some  weep  ;  some  dream. 
In  these  last,  their  melancholy  inclines  them  to  a  hazy 
mysticism,  which  either  triumphs  over  the  realistic  in- 
stincts, or  else  allies  itself  with  them  in  strangest  union. 
Of  such  a  union  Dostoievski  was  the  product. 

Finally,  we  must  inquire  of  the  climate,  of  the  race, 
and  of  its  history,  wherefore  this  Russian,  who  is  a 
conceiver  of  ideas,  a  realiser  of  artistic  forms,  should 
be  possessed  of  scant  originality  in  his  methods  of 
thought,  while  showing  much  in  his  methods  of  trans- 
lating the  thoughts  of  others,  in  his  sentiments,  his 
tastes,  his  gestures.  In  such  matters,  indeed,  his  origi- 
nality reaches  the  point  of  oddity,  and  goes  beyond  it, 
even  as  far  as  that  indigenous  samodourstvo  which,  in 
certain  of  its  forms,  borders  closely  on  madness.  This, 
again,  is  natural, because  psychological  development  has 
degrees  of  its  own,  and  the  emotional  faculties  are  here 
naturally  on  a  lower  plane. 

To  sum  it  up.  A  people  and  a  literature  standing 
apart;  geographically, ethnographically,  historically,  out- 
side the  Western  European  community.  No  doubt  the 
three  great  elements  of  Western  civilisation,  the  Chris- 
tian, the  Graeco-Norman,  and  the  German,  are  to  be 
found  at  the  base  of  this  eccentric  formation,  but  in  very 
different  proportion,  combination,  and  depth.  Both  the 
nation  and  its  literature  have,  indeed,  alike  received  the 
triple  baptism  which  freed  Russia  from  all  the  primitive 
barbarisms — the  apostolate  of  Cyril  and  Methodius,  the 
Varegian  conquest,  the  Byzantine  civilization.  But  the 
hold  of  the  conquerors,  whether  of  Norman  or  of  German 


THE   RUSSIAN   LANGUAGE  5 

origin,  was  weak  and  transient ;  so  weak  and  so  tran- 
sient, indeed,  that  their  very  origin  is  now  disputed. 
Cyril  and  Methodius  bore  with  them  the  germ  of  the 
Eastern  Schism,  and  by  that  schism,  as  well  as  by  the 
influence  of  Byzantium,  Russia  was  actually  cut  off 
from  the  Western  European  world,  and  isolated  in  a 
solitude  which  was  to  endure  for  centuries.  From  the 
Crusades  down  to  the  Revolution,  bhe  bore  no  part  in 
any  of  the  manifestations  of  European  life.  She  slum- 
bered on,  hard  by. 

All  this  will  be  recognised  by  my  readers  in  the 
literature  we  are  about  to  study  together.  Somewhat 
of  it  is  evident  even  in  the  language  used  by  Dostoi- 
evski  and  Tolstoi.  A  wondrous  instrument  it  is,  the 
most  melodious,  certainly,  in  the  Slavonic  circle,  one  of 
the  most  melodious  in  the  universe ;  flexible,  sono- 
rous, graceful,  lending  itself  to  every  tone  and  every 
style,  simple  or  elegant  at  will,  subtle  and  refined, 
energetic,  picturesque.  In  its  diversity  of  form  and 
construction,  partly  due  to  its  frequent  inversions, 
it  resembles  the  classic  languages  and  German.  Its 
power  of  embodying  a  whole  figure  in  one  word  marks 
its  kinship  with  the  Oriental  tongues.  The  extreme 
variability  of  the  tonic  accent,  which  lends  itself  to  every 
rhythmic  combination,  a  markedly  intuitive  character, 
and  a  wonderful  plasticity,  combine  to  form  a  language 
unrivalled,  perhaps,  in  its  poetic  qualities.  But  the  in- 
strument was  made  but  yesterday.  There  are  gaps  in 
it ;  some  parts  are  borrowed  ;  we  find  discords  here  and 
there  which  the  centuries  have  not  yet  had  time  to  fill, 
to  harmonise,  to  resolve.  This  tongue  finds  soft  and 
caressing  words  even  for  those  things  which  partake 
the  least  of  such  a  character.     Voina  stands  for  war ; 


6  RUSSIAN    LITERATURE 

vo'ine  for  the  warrior.  But  should  the  warrior  be 
called  to  defend  his  country,  threatened  by  an  in- 
vader, he  becomes  Khrabryi,  Zachtchichtchaioiichtchyi  ! 
Can  we  not  hear  the  hoarse  whistling  yell  of  the  bar- 
barians ? 

This  language  is  the  offspring,  too,  of  Peter  the  Great 
and  the  Reform.  Later  on  I  shall  speak  of  its  origin. 
In  its  alphabet  we  recognise  perverted  forms  of  both 
Greek  and  Roman  letters,  and  others  of  strange  appear- 
ance, which  neither  these  two  classic  alphabets  nor  that 
of  the  German  tongue  possess  ;  and  a  residuum,  also 
perverted,  from  the  ancient  liturgic  or  Cyrillic  Slav 
alphabet — the  Tower  of  Babel,  never-ending. 

Modern  Russia  belongs  to  the  Oriental  family  of 
the  Slavonic  languages  ;  but  of  all  these  languages  it  is 
the  one  which  contains  the  greatest  number  of  elements 
pertaining  to  other  families.  Thus  the  vowel  a,  spe- 
cially characteristic  of  the  Finnish  tongue,  has  replaced, 
in  many  words,  the  primitive  o  of  the  Slavonic  roots. 
The  Tartar  invasion  has  left  its  impress  both  on  words 
and  on  the  construction  of  sentences.  In  the  depart- 
ment of  science,  the  German  invader  has  won  a  decided 
victory ;  and  Dobrolioubov,  the  great  critic  of  the 
"  fifties,"  was  able  to  say,  and  without  undue  exaggera- 
tion, that  the  literary  language  of  his  country  had 
nothing  Russian  about  it. 

But  the  Russian  tongue  it  is  ;  and  being  also  the  lan- 
guage of  a  colonising  nation,  it  admits  of  no  divergence 
nor  any  provincial  corruption.  There  is  hardly  any 
patois  in  the  country.  But  it  is  a  new  language,  without 
any  deep  root  in  the  country's  history,  and  the  literature 
of  which  it  is  the  organ  is  likewise  new,  and  devoid  of 
historic  depth.     Hence,  apart  even  from  the  manifold 


THE   RUSSIAN   LANGUAGE  7 

causes  already  enumerated,  we  have  an  alternation  of 
periods  of  rich  and  rapid  expansion  with  others  of  the 
sterility  born  of  exhaustion.  Of  this  fact  we  shall  see 
clear  evidence.  Hence  also  a  predisposition  to  new 
formulas,  and  to  the  wiping-  out  of  the  old  ones,  to 
thorough-going  radicalism  in  things  literary,  to  haughty 
scorn  of  all  traditions  and  conventions,  and  even  of 
propriety. 


CHAPTER    I 

THE    EPIC    AGE 

Popular  Poetry 

In  Russia  the  epic  age  was  prolonged  up  to  the  threshold 
of  the  present  century.  The  heroic  legend  of  Platov 
and  his  Cossacks  pursuing  the  retreat  of  the  hated 
Khrantzoiiz  (Frenchman)  is  still  in  the  mouth  of  the 
popular  bard,  the  strings  of  whose  rustic  lyre  yet  ring 
in  certain  remote  corners  of  the  country,  in  defiance 
of  Pouchkine  and  his  followers.  This  phenomenon  is 
natural  enough.  From  the  point  of  view  of  literary 
evolution,  five  or  six  centuries  lie  between  Russia  and 
the  other  countries  possessed  of  European  culture.  At 
the  period  when  Duns  Scotus,  William  of  Wykeham,  and 
Roger  Bacon  were  barring  the  West  with  that  streak  of 
light  whereat  such  men  as  Columbus,  Descartes,  Galileo, 
and  Newton  were  soon  to  kindle  their  torches,  Russia 
still  lay  wrapped  in  darkness.  An  explanation  of  this 
long-continued  gloom  has  been  sought  even  among  the 
skulls  latelv  unearthed  in  the  neio:hbourhood  of  Moscow. 
These  appear  to  have  revealed  that,  in  the  primitive  in- 
habitants of  that  country,  the  sensual  elements  were  so 
excessively  developed  as  to  exclude  the  rest. 

The  Tartar  conquest  of  the  thirteenth  century  should 
be  a  much  more  trustworthy  event  on  which  to  reckon, 
in  this  connection.    It  destroyed  the  budding  civilisation 
8 


THE    DAWN    OF    CHRISTIANITY  9 

of  the  sphere  influenced  by  Kiev^  But  even  then,  the 
empire  of  the  Vladimirs  and  the  Jaroslavs  followed  far 
indeed  behind  the  progress  of  the  European  world.  In 
1240,  when  the  hordes  of  Baty  thundered  at  the  gates 
of  Kiev,  nothing  within  them  portended  the  approach- 
ing birth  of  a  Dante,  and  no  labours  such  as  those 
of  a  Duns  Scotus,  nor  even  of  a  Villehardouin,  suf- 
fered interruption.  The  tardy  dawn  of  Christianity 
in  these  quarters,  together  with  the  baptism  of  Vladi- 
mir (988),  and  the  Byzantine  hegemony,  which  was  its 
first-fruit,  in  themselves  involved  a  falling  behind  the 
hour  marked  by  the  European  clock.  The  Byzantine 
culture  had  a  value  of  its  own.  Previous  to  the  Renais- 
sance, it  imposed  itself  even  upon  the  West.  But  it  had 
little  communicative  power.  To  the  outer  world  its  only 
effulgence  was  that  of  a  centre  of  religious  propaganda, 
and  this  fervour,  strongly  tinctured  with  asceticism, 
checked,  more  than  it  favoured,  any  intellectual  soarings. 
Here  we  find  the  explanation  of  another  phenomenon — 
that  the  poetry  of  this  epoch,  and  even  of  later  times, 
has  only  been  handed  down  to  us  by  word  of  mouth. 
In  this  part  of  the  world,  and  up  till  the  close  of  the 
seventeenth  century  writing  and  printing  were  con- 
trolled by  the  Church — a  Church  resolute  in  her 
hostility  to  every  element  of  profane  culture.  In  the 
Domestic  Code  {domostroi)  of  Pope  Sylvester,  a  con- 
temporary of  Ivan  the  Terrible,  the  national  poetry 
is  still  treated  as  devilry  —  pagan,  and  consequently 
damnable. 

Thus  the  harmonious  offspring  of  the  national  genius 
has  lived  on  in  the  memories  of  succeeding  generations. 
But  hunted,  even  in  this  final  refuge,  by  ecclesiastical 
anathemas,  it  has  retreated,  step  by  step,  towards  the 


lO  RUSSIAN    LITERATURE 

lonely  and  bitter  regions  of  the  extremest  North.  When 
modern  science  sought  to  wake  the  echoes  of  the  old 
songs  first  warbled  under  the  '*  Golden  Gate"  of  Kiev, 
the  only  answer  came  from  the  huts  and  taverns  of  the 
White  Sea.  The  oldest  of  all  the  collections  of  Rus- 
sian verse,  that  of  Kircha  Danilov,  dates  from  the  eigh- 
teenth century  only,  and  is  of  dubious  value.  The  wave 
of  melody  has  rolled  across  time  and  space,  gathering, 
as  it  passed,  local  legends,  passing  inspirations,  and  the 
enigmatic  fruit  of  foreign  fiction  and  lyrics.  Then  it  has 
divided,  evaporated,  and  lost  itself,  finally,  in  the  sand 
and  mud. 

The  work  done  for  the  West  by  the  Icelandic  Sagas 
was  thus  delayed,  in  Russia,  by  some  four  or  five  cen- 
turies. The  only  written  traces  of  the  glory  of  Ilia 
of  Mourom,  the  great  hero  of  the  cycle  of  Kiev,  are  to 
be  found  in  German,  Polish,  or  Scandinavian  manu- 
scripts. It  was  an  English  traveller,  Richard  James, 
whose  curiosity  induced  him,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
seventeenth  century  (1619),  to  note  down  the  original 
forms  of  the  Russian  lyric  ;  and  as  a  crowning  disgrace, 
the  first  imitators  (in  the  following  century)  of  this  Eng- 
lish collector  (Novikov,  Tchoulkov,  Popov,  Bogdano- 
vitch)  were  forgers.  They  took  upon  themselves  to 
correct  the  outpourings  of  the  popular  inspiration ! 

Did  ancient  Russia  possess  concurrently  with  this 
oral  poetry  a  literary  verse,  allied  with  the  Nibeliwgen- 
lied  and  the  Chansons  de  Geste  ?  One  specimen  exists,  the 
famous  "Story  of  the  Band  of  Igor."  But  this  is  but 
a  solitary  ruin.     I  shall  refer  to  it  later. 

In  our  own  day,  the  popular  poetry  brought  to  light 
by  the  labours  of  such  Russian  savants  as  Kiriei6vski, 
Sakharov,  Rybnikov,  and  Hilferding,  and  revealed  to 


POPULAR   POETRY  II 

the  Western  world  by  the  translations  and  studies  of 
Ralston,  Bistrom,  Damberg,  lagic,  and  Rambaud,  has 
emerged  in  all  its  wealth.  It  was  an  astonishment  and 
a  delight.  The  fragments  of  French  popular  songs 
collected  in  1853,  the  gwerziou  of  Lower  Brittany,  the 
Chants  des  Paiivres  of  the  Velay  and  the  Forez,  the 
national  poetry  of  Languedoc  and  Provence,  form  but 
a  povei-ty-stricken  treasury  in  comparison.  But  there 
is  no  possibility  of  any  comparison.  The  prolongation 
of  the  epic  period  in  the  lower  strata  of  the  Russian 
world,  until  the  moment  of  its  paradoxical  encounter 
with  the  sudden  development,  literary  and  scientific, 
which  took  place  in  the  upper  strata,  has  produced  a 
result  which  I  believe  to  be  unprecedented  in  human 
history.  At  the  gates  of  Archangel  the  Russian  col- 
lectors found  themselves  face  to  face  with  the  authentic 
depositaries  of  a  poetic  heritage  dating  from  prehistoric 
epochs.  One  night  in  a  railway  train  still  carries  them 
into  the  heart  of  the  twelfth  century. 

But  this  inheritance,  rich  though  it  be,  is  not  abso- 
lutely intact.  Some  Russian  savants,  such  as  Mr.  Srez- 
niewski,  have  gone  so  far  as  to  doubt  its  authenticity.  It 
was  the  absence  of  certain  historic  links,  the  presence  of 
certain  features  corresponding  with  the  popular  poetry, 
and  even  with  the  poetical  literature,  of  other  nations 
which  stirred  their  scepticism.  We  find  no  symptom,  in- 
deed, of  the  recorded  historic  life  of  the  period  anterior 
to  the  Tartar  conquest,  and  that  conquest  itself  is  only 
reflected  in  imagery  of  excessive  faintness.  On  the  other 
hand,  we  easily  recognise  in  Polkane,  one  of  the  heroes 
of  the  poetic  legend  of  Bova,  the  Pulicane  of  the  Reali 
di  Francia,  a  collection  of  Italian  epic  poetry. 

Mr.   Khalanski  has  gone  so  far  as  to  contest  the 


12  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

commonly  accepted  fact  of  the  migration  of  this  poetry 
from  south  to  north.  He  founds  his  theory  on  the 
absence  of  any  corresponding  movement  among  the 
Southern  peoples.  But  no  German  emigrants  were  needed 
to  carry  the  songs  of  the  Edda  across  the  continent 
of  Europe  ;  and  as  to  the  phenomena  of  concord,  or  even 
fusion,  with  the  poetry  of  the  West,  they  are  sufficiently 
accounted  for  by  the  special  character  of  the  Russian 
epopee.  This  epopee  was,  until  quite  recent  times,  a  living 
being,  who  dwelt,  like  all  living  beings,  in  communion 
with  the  world  about  him. 

To  sum  it  up,  Russian  popular  poetry,  as  we  know  it, 
is  neither  homogeneous  in  character  nor  precise  in  date. 
It  is  the  complex  product  of  a  series  of  centuries,  and  of 
an  organic  development  which  has  continued  down  to 
our  own  days.  It  reflects  both  the  ancient  Russian  life  of 
the  Kiev  period,  the  later  Muscovite  period,  and  even  the 
St.  Petersburg  period  of  modern  times.  It  has  likewise 
absorbed  some  features  of  Western  life. 

As  to  form,  we  find  two  chief  phases — the  polymor- 
phous metre,  of  seven,  eight,  or  nine  feet,  and  the  line  of 
three  or  six  feet,  in  which  the  simple  trochee  is  followed 
by  the  dactyl  : — 


As  to  substance,  we  have  three  leading  categories — 
heroic  tales  or  bylines^  songs  on  special  subjects,  and 
historical  songs  ;  all  with  one  common  characteristic,  the 
predominance  of  the  Pagan  spirit.  The  influence  of  Chris- 
tianity is  hardly  to  be  discerned.  And  this  one  feature,  both 
from  the  point  of  view  of  culture,  and  more  particularly 
from  that  of  literary  evolution,  opens  an  abyss  between 
Russia  and  Europe.     The  anathema  of  the  Church  falls 


THE  BYLINES  13 

on  every  legend,  Christian  or  Pagan,  with  equal  severity. 
Hence,  partly,  arises  that  profound  and  imperturbable 
realism  which  seems  to  have  saturated  the  national  lite- 
rature from  the  outset,  and  which  still  predominates  in 
its  development. 

The  Bylines. 

The  word  byline  seems  to  be  derived  from  bylo,  "has 
been."  Sakharov  was,  indeed,  the  first  person  to  use  it, 
after  an  ancient  manuscript  which  has  now  disappeared. 
Yet  it  is  found  in  the  "  Story  of  the  Band  of  Igor "  as 
equivalent  to  the  expression  *'  narrative."  In  the  seven- 
teenth-century texts  the  word  used  is  staryna  =  ^^2.]\W- 
quity." 

The  bylines  gravitate  in  two  distinct  cycles  round  the 
two  centres  of  ancient  Russian  life — Kiev  and  Novgorod. 
In  the  Kiev  cycle,  the  legendary  figures  cluster  round 
Vladimir.  Yet  a  certain  number  of  bylines  evoke  yet 
more  ancient  heroes,  of  origin  and  prowess  alike  fabulous. 
Volga  Sviatoslavitch  is  the  son  of  a  princess  by  a  serpent ; 
he  is  the  personification  of  wisdom  and  cunning.  In  the 
case  of  Sviatogor  the  ruling  quality  is  strength.  He  is 
so  huge  that  the  earth  can  scarcely  carry  him — a  feature 
also  to  be  found  in  the  Rustem  of  Persian  story.  These 
personages,  like  the  Titans  of  the  Greek  legend,  symbolise 
the  struggle  of  man  with  the  elements.  But  this  Slav 
myth  is  far  from  possessing  the  fulness  of  those  which 
have  descended  to  us  from  the  Germans  and  Scandi- 
navians. There  was  no  priestly  caste  among  the  Slav 
pagans  to  garner  up  those  religious  traditions  which 
have  formed  the  basis  of  every  great  school  of  poetry. 

With  Vladimir,  a  gleam  of  chivalry  appears.  He  and 
those  about  him  are  giants,  but  jolly  companions  and 


14  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

mighty  drinkers  as  well.  At  this  point  the  epic  links 
itself  with  history,  for  the  Vladimir  known  to  history 
actually  was  a  great  feast-giver.  Yet  the  link  is  a  frail 
one.  The  bylines  know  naught  either  of  this  sovereign's 
introduction  of  Christianity,  or  of  the  energy  and  skill 
which,  according  to  the  chroniclers,  marked  his  initiatory 
efforts.  The  Vladimir  of  poetry  confines  himself  to  per- 
petually inventing  fresh  exploits  for  his  heroes,  to  feed- 
ing them  royally,  and  to  marrying  them  off.  He  has  no 
personal  heroism.  His  deeds  of  prowess  do  not  exist, 
and  his  usual  bearing  strikes  us  as  somewhat  effeminate, 
and  even  cowardly.  When  the  Tartars  besiege  Kiev,  he 
almost  goes  on  his  knees  to  Ilia,  the  destined  saviour  of 
the  empire.  Ilia  requires  a  good  deal  of  pressing,  and 
is  not  far  wrong,  for  the  sovereign's  behaviour  betrays 
a  general  lack  of  generosity,  not  to  speak  of  common 
honesty. 

He  covets  the  spouse  of  one  of  his  heroes,  and  drives 
husband  and  wife  to  despair  and  death.  This  legend  is 
evidently  a  mere  variation  of  the  biblical  story  of  David 
and  the  wife  of  Uriah  the  Hittite,  and  the  polygamous 
Vladimir  bears  the  sins  of  a  whole  series  of  sovereigns, 
down  to  Ivan  the  Terrible.  But  the  inspiration  of  the 
poem  is  all  the  more  significant. 

Ilia  is  a  peerless  comrade,  the  favourite  hero  of  the 
bylines.  His  personal  appearance,  qualities,  and  brave 
deeds,  are  generally  supposed  to  typify  the  ideal  personi- 
fication of  the  national  temperament  and  genius.  The 
peculiarities  of  the  hero  warrant  this  belief.  In  the  first 
place,  he  is  of  peasant  blood ;  and  at  the  feast  he  forces 
the  lords  of  Vladimir's  court  to  give  place  before  the 
moujiks  of  his  company.  This  humility  of  origin  is  not 
exceptional   in   the   circle   about   the   prince.     Another 


VLADIMIR  15 

member  of  it,  Aliocha,  is  the  son  of  a  pope  ;  and  an- 
other, Soloviei  Boudimirovitch,  the  son  of  a  shopkeeper. 
Both  of  these  fraternise  with  Dobrynia,  who  belongs 
to  a  princely  family.  Ilia  and  Dobrynia  exchange  their 
crosses  as  a  sign  of  friendship.  These  traits  are  true  to 
the  instincts  and  traditions  of  a  nation  in  whose  bosom 
a  real  aristocracy  has  never  succeeded  in  taking  root. 

Ilia — like  one  of  his  forerunners  in  the  prehistoric 
cycle,  Mikoula  Selianinovitch — is  a  cultivator  of  the 
soil,  and  except  for  the  Russian  bard,  I  believe  none  but 
the  rhapsodist  of  the  Finnish  Kalevala  would  have  be- 
stowed a  leading  heroic  role  on  a  tiller  of  the  ground.  Yet 
in  some  other  traits  of  character,  and  certain  of  his  exploits. 
Ilia  so  nearly  approaches  the  epic  and  mythologic  world 
of  neighbouring  countries,  as  to  seem  merged  in  more 
than  one  of  their  representatives.  Until  the  age  of  thirty, 
he  remains  inactive  ;  and  here  the  influence  of  the 
Christian  myth  is  clearly  visible.  Later  on  he  fights 
with  a  fabulous  robber,  Soloviei  (the  Nightingale),  who 
has  wings,  and  bends  the  mightiest  oaks  by  the  mere 
weight  of  his  body.  But  danger  alarms  Ilia,  and  the 
expedients  he  invents  to  escape  it  carry  our  minds 
to  Hector  fleeing  before  Achilles,  and  to  Rama,  seized 
with  terror  in  the  presence  of  Kabhanda.  At  the  time 
of  his  greatest  feats.  Ilia  is  no  longer  young,  and  his 
white  beard  reminds  us  of  Roland.  He  hesitates  long 
before  he  succours  Kiev ;  he  is  perpetually  disputing 
with  Vladimir,  and  with  and  around  him  the  whole  turbu- 
lent and  quarrelsome  band  of  the  legendary  heroes  of 
Europe  and  Asia,  Rustem,  Achilles,  Sigurd,  Siegfried, 
Arthur,  with  all  the  Olympian  demi-gods,  from  the 
Hindoo  Indra  to  the  Thor-Wotan  of  the  Germans,  and 
the  Peroune  of  the  Russians,  rise  before  our  eyes.     But 


1 6  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

dissimilarities  crop  up  forthwith.  When,  at  long  last, 
Ilia  consents  to  deliver  Kiev,  it  is  neither  lest  he  should 
be  accused  of  cowardice,  like  Rustem,  nor  to  wreak  a 
personal  vengeance,  like  Achilles.  He  is  too  much  of  a 
philosopher,  too  good-natured,  for  that.  The  Palatine 
Ogier,  whose  son  has  been  slain  by  Charlemagne,  de- 
mands the  murderer's  head  as  the  price  of  his  co-opera- 
tion against  the  Saracens.  Ilia  is  incapable  of  making 
such  a  bargain  ;  nor  does  he  obey  any  instinct  of  per- 
sonal devotion  to  Vladimir.  Indifferent  alike  to  the  point 
of  honour  and  to  the  hope  of  glory,  he  raises  his  eyes 
above  them  both.  That  redoubtable  arm  is  only  lifted 
to  defend  the  widow  and  the  orphan,  or  for  the  common 
weal. 

The  manner  in  which  this  conception  has  been 
utilised  by  the  Slavophil  party  will  be  easily  divined. 
And  assuredly  the  comparison  which  certain  Western 
writers,  following  their  lead,  have  delighted  to  establish 
with  the  Greek  heroes  and  the  noblest  paladins  of  the 
Chansons  de  Geste,  redounds  to  Ilia's  advantage.  Yet  even 
here  the  comparison  is  irrelevant.  The  Greek  heroes 
were  not  Christians,  and  the  paladins  were  the  merest 
miscreants.  This  latter  type  only  assumes  an  ideal 
aspect  in  the  Romances  of  the  Round  TablCy  and  there 
it  at  once  appears  in  conjunction  with  that  pregnant 
belief,  the  source  of  true  Christian  chivalry,  that  the 
noblest  fashion  of  employing  strength  is  for  the  defence 
of  the  weak.  Ilia,  too,  has  his  origin  in  this  belief.  The 
final  elaboration  of  his  type  is  certainly  of  later  date  than 
the  Romances  of  the  Round  Tabky  and  in  its  best,  which 
are  not  always  its  most  apparent  features,  it  undoubtedly 
is  a  Christian  type. 

Apart,  in  fact,  from  his  humanitarian  instincts,  there 


ILIA  17 

is  nothing  knightly  about  IHa.  He  is  too  coarse  for  that, 
too  commonplace,  and,  above  all,  too  pacifically  inclined. 
He  only  fights  under  compulsion,  and  when  it  is  inevi- 
table— never  for  the  pleasure  of  the  thing.  And  this 
peculiarity  makes  him  the  faithful  representative  of  a  race 
the  accidents  of  whose  historical  fate  has  rendered  it 
warlike,  but  which  has  never  been  swept  away  by  one 
of  those  floods  of  martial  ardour  which  stirred  the 
Western  countries  during  the  Middle  Ages. 

Ilia  is  a  mighty  eater  and  a  heavy  drinker.  On  the 
very  eve  of  a  battle  we  see  him  get  drunk,  and  remain 
for  twelve  days  in  a  state  of  vinous  stupefaction  and 
consequent  incapability  of  action.  If  his  wine  does  not 
actually  overwhelm  his  senses,  he  grows  noisy  and  in- 
tolerable. When  sober  he  is  cautious  and  calculating,  not 
caring  either  to  exert  his  strength  unnecessarily,  or  to 
expose  it  to  ordeals  involving  too  much  risk.  When  he 
has  once  made  up  his  mind  to  face  a  danger,  and  has 
contrived  to  surmount  the  shudder  which,  in  his  case, 
always  accompanies  such  a  decision,  he  is  much  given  to 
joke  and  banter,  a  trait  which  survives  in  the  Russian 
peasant  to  this  day. 

The  type,  on  the  whole,  is  a  sympathetic  one — but 
quite  exceptional  even  in  the  legend — set  far  up  on  the 
height  of  the  popular  inspiration.  Ilia's  followers  do  not 
reach  his  ankle.  They  are  lost  below  him — very  much 
below  him — in  a  confused  medley  of  rogues,  blunderers, 
boasters,  and  cowards,  of  whom  he  himself  has  but  a 
poor  opinion,  seeing  he  generally  has  to  do  their  work 
for  them.  Their  merit  is  their  strength — a  physical 
vigour  which  enables  them  to  triumph  over  everything, 
even  over  common  sense.  They  run  their  heads  against 
fortress    walls,    and  the   walls    crumble    before    them. 


1 8  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Barren  of  ideals  as  of  ideas,  they  represent,  in  the  popu- 
lar conception,  the  lower  grade  of  heroism,  the  elemen- 
tary forces  of  Nature,  of  the  earth,  of  the  wind,  of  the 
heavy  fist. 

Tourgueniev  has  placed  this  terrible  declaration  in 
the  mouth  of  Potioughine,  the  grumbler  in  Smoke: 
'^.  What  is  known  as  our  ^  epic  literature '  is  the  only  one 
in  Europe  or  Asia  which  does  not  afford  a  single 
example  of  a  typical  pair  of  lovers.  The  hero  of  Holy 
Russia  always  begins  his  relations  with  the  being  to 
whose  destiny  fate  has  linked  his  own.  by  mercilessly  ill- 
treating  her.  .  .  .  Look  into  our  legends.  Love  never 
appears  in  them  but  as  the  result  of  a  charm  or  spell. 
It  is  absorbed  with  the  liquor  that  brings  forgetfulness  ; 
its  effect  is  compared  with  soil  that  is  dried  up,  or 
frozen." 

Yet  numerous  female  figures  flit  across  these  legends. 
They  possess  but  little  charm.  They  are  triumphant, 
often,  with  an  air  of  superiority  which  raises  them  above 
the  masculine  element ;  but  this  they  owe  neither  to 
their  attraction  nor  to  the  love  they  inspire.  Ilia  of 
Moiirom  is  overthrown  by  a  giant  Polenitsa  {Polenitsas 
is  the  generic  title  of  these  viragos),  who  prowls  over 
the  steppe,  shouldering  a  club  weighing  several  thou- 
sand pounds,  defying  the  bohatyry  (heroes) — and  who 
turns  out  to  be  his  own  daughter.  Vassilissa,  the 
daughter  of  Mikoula,  combines  strength  with  cunning 
to  rescue  her  husband,  Stavre  Godounovitch  ;  but  the 
legend  is  dumb  as  to  her  beauty  and  that  of  her  fellow- 
women.  And  this  neglect  suffices  to  distinguish  the 
Polenitsas  from  the  Amazons,  as  well  as  from  the  Val- 
kyries. Men  fight  with  them,  they  are  frequently  over- 
come by  them,  but  they  never  pay  court  to  them. 


RUSSIAN   WOMEN  19 

The  woman  of  modern  Russia  does  not  share  this 
peculiarity  of  her  legendary  predecessor.  Yet  certain 
features  of  the  legendary  type  do  appear,  even  in 
the  most  recent  artistic  creations,  both  in  poetry  and 
romance.  Whether  the  author  be  Pouchkine,  Tour- 
gueniev,  or  Tolstoi',  whether  it  be  a  question  of  love  or 
of  action,  of  doing  good  or  of  finding  the  right  way,  the 
initiative  is  most  frequently  allotted  to  the  woman.  She 
inspires,  guides,  rectifies — and  is  fond  of  putting  herself 
forward. 

But  this  type  is  not  the  only  one,  either  in  history  or 
legend.  It  proceeds  from  the  pagan  tradition.  Byzan- 
tine Christianity  has  added  the  woman  of  the  Terein. 
This  lady  has  *^  long  hair  and  a  short  understanding,"  a 
narrow  intelligence  and  an  erring  flesh.  The  Penelope 
of  these  parts,  Nastasia,  wife  of  Dobrynia,  wearies  of 
waiting  for  the  husband  whom  the  war  keeps  from  the 
conjugal  hearth,  much  more  quickly  than  the  fair  Greek, 
and  forgets  all  too  soon  that  she  has  sworn  she  will  not 
marry  Aliocha. 

The  figures  evoked  by  the  cycle  of  Novgorod  are 
quite  different — a  race  of  merchants,  of  pilgrims  to 
che  Holy  Land,  of  navigators,  and  builders  of  towns. 
Quarrelsome  and  pugnacious  they  still  are,  but  only 
within  the  walls  of  their  own  city  ;  and  they  still  lead 
expeditions  into  Moslem  countries,  but  only  for  the  sake 
of  traffic.  "The  Venetians  of  the  Russian  Crusade," 
a  certain  writer  has  justly  called  them.  Their  history  is 
embodied  in  two  legends,  of  which  many  variations 
exist.  That  of  Sadko  only  shows  us  the  somewhat  vulgar 
figure  of  a  devout  and  pushing  merchant.  The  hero  of 
another,  Vassili  or  Vaska,  son  of  Bousslai,  is  a  burgher, 
unsurpassed    even   by  Ilia   in    stormy  and    quarrelsome 


20  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

temper,  who  makes  the  town  ring  with  the  tumult  of  his 
freaks  and  bloodthirsty  rages.  Just  as  he  is  about  to 
destroy  his  fellow-citizens,  his  father  intervenes.  Where- 
upon Vaska  shuts  him  up  in  a  cellar.  Vaska's  whole 
hfe  is  one  tissue  of  follies  and  crimes.  To  expiate  these, 
he  goes  on  pilgrimage  to  Jerusalem,  and  dies,  on  his 
return,  by  attempting  a  dangerous  leap  and  striking 
against  a  rock — the  image  of  the  fate  his  pride  has 
courted. 

Popular  Songs. 

The  first  singers  of  bylines  are  believed  to  have  been 
professional  bards,  attached  to  the  court  of  the  Varegian 
princes.  Their  tradition  seems  to  have  been  carried  on 
by  the  skoromokhy  of  the  Muscovite  epoch,  against  whom 
the  pious  and  scrupulous  Tsar  Alexis  waged  merciless 
war.  For  a  long  period  they  were  the  great  entertain- 
ment of  the  noble  houses.  Their  present  descendants 
are  only  to  be  found  in  the  huts  and  taverns  of  the 
province  of  Olonetz. 

In  hut  and  tavern,  from  one  end  of  Russia  to  the 
other,  simple  melodies  are  still  sung,  recalling  or  accom- 
panying the  recital,  in  a  confused  traditional  medley,  of 
the  common  events  of  the  popular  life  and  of  Christian 
and  Pagan  festivals.  Christmas  Koliada^  Roussalnaiay 
in  honour  of  the  Slavonic  nym.phs  {roussalki),  harvest 
songs  {dojinki)y  betrothal  songs  {svadiebnyie  piesni)y  and 
funeral  songs  [pokhoronnyie). 

Incantations  [zagovory)  against  drought  and  hre  hold 
a  considerable  place  in  this  national  poetry,  and  so  do 
riddles  {zagadki)  and  proverbs  {posslovitsy)^  which  en- 
shrme  the  popular  wisdom  as  drawn  from  all  its  nume- 
rous sources — half  Pagan^  half  Christian,  ancient,  modern. 


SONGS  21 

To  these  the  bylines  bring  their  share,  as  do  the  Scrip- 
tures, more  especially  the  Psalms  and  Ecclesiastes,  and 
further  and  more  recent  contributions  are  supplied  by 
the  epigrams  of  Kapnist,  the  fables  of  Krylov,  and  the 
humoristic  verses  of  Gogol. 

It  may  easily  be  conceived  that  these  songs,  resound- 
ing as  they  do  all  over  a  huge  stretch  of  territory,  Great 
Russia,  Little  Russia,  White  Russia,  are  not  absolutely 
uniform.  They  reproduce  the  divergences  of  historical 
existence.  Their  common  feature  is  a  profound  melan- 
choly, which  broods  even  over  the  betrothal  songs,  and 
of  which  we  perceive  the  echo  in  most  of  the  modern 
poets. 

*'We  all  sing  in  sadnesss.  .  .  .  The  Russian  song  is  a 
melancholy  plaint,"  so  writes  Pouchkine. 

Nature  and  history  have  alike  dealt  hardly  with  this 
people.  A  severe  climate,  an  ungrateful  soil,  an  unattrac- 
tive landscape,  poverty,  serfdom,  the  Byzantine  yoke, 
the  autocratic  regime,  have  all  combined  to  make  up  a 
troubled  existence,  a  rugged  fatherland,  a  home  devoid 
of  charm.  For  a  lengthened  period,  the  only  remedy  the 
Russian  could  discover  against  these  many  enemies  was 
that  he  found  in  his  glass — intoxication.  The  primi- 
tive bards  have  lovingly  sung  the  praises  of  this  arch- 
consoler.  The  poets  who  have  succeeded  them — their 
superiors  in  inspiration  and  culture  —  have  sought 
some  other  expedient,  and  have  discovered  none — save 
death. 

Yet  the  nation  endowed  with  this  ungrateful  country, 
this  inhospitable  home,  has  loved  both  with  a  tenderness 
which  I  do  not  fear  to  call  unexampled — so  strong,  so 
passionate,  so  jealous,  so  devoted  does  it  appear  to  me. 
Perhaps  this  is  because,  in  order  to  love  what  has  so 


22  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

little  that  is  lovable  about  it,  the  Russian  has  been  con- 
strained to  idealise  the  object  of  his  love,  to  re-create 
it,  as  it  were,  by  faith  and  imagination  ;  and  he  has  thus 
succeeded  in  converting  his  love  into  a  religion,  a  wor- 
ship, a  fanaticism. 

The  national  literature,  like  the  popular  poetry,  is 
saturated  with  this  principle. 

Historical  Narratives. 

These  gravitate  round  Moscow,  reconstructing  more 
especially  the  dramatic  period  dominated  by  the  great 
figure  of  Ivan  the  Terrible.  Certain  anecdotes  reported 
by  Collins  in  his  Travels  in  Russia  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century  are  founded  on  ancient  skazJd 
(recitals)  concerning  this  sovereign.  Some,  indeed,  of 
these  narratives  plunge  even  into  the  Tartar  epoch,  and 
are  thus  connected  with  the  Kiev  cycle.  The  form  is 
almost  that  of  the  bylineSy  and  the  inspiration  is  fre- 
quently analogous— the  mythical  element  being  wedded 
to  the  historical  groundwork.  Ivan  keeps  open  table 
like  Vladimir,  and  some  of  his  boyards  perform  fabulous 
exploits  as  improbable  as  those  ascribed  to  Ilia. 

In  every  poetic  evocation  of  the  "Terrible,"  the  ruling 
idea  is  the  glorification  of  his  conquest.  To  the  poets  he 
is  above  all  things  the  Tsar  who  captured  Kazan,  Riazan, 
and  Astrakhan.  Yet  the  popular  inspiration  is  not  con- 
tent with  mere  commonplace  and  superficial  praise.  It 
dissects  the  Tsar's  character,  lays  bare  his  personal  psy- 
chology, and  does  not  ignore  its  contradictions  and 
dissonances ;  but  it  makes  the  best  of  them.  It  is 
fully  aware  of  the  man's  cruelty,  and  even  takes  care 
to  depict  it  in  frightful  colours,  but  at  the  same  time 


HISTORICAL  NARRATIVES  23 

justifies  it.  It  finds  the  explanation  for  this  cruelty 
in  the  Tsar's  struggle  against  the  aristocratic  oligarchy. 
In  this  quarrel  the  whole  heart  of  the  people  goes  with 
the  sovereign  and  against  the  boyards  ;  and  indeed  his 
Russian  surname  {Grozny i)  does  not  so  much  mean  the 
'' Terrible"  as  the  ''Dreaded." 

The  popular  poets  rise  in  arms  against  the  false 
Demetrius,  and  hold  him  up  as  a  traducer  of  the  national 
beliefs  and  customs.  Their  descriptions  of  the  siege  of 
the  monastery  of  Solovietsk  in  the  time  of  Alexis,  betray 
a  certain  sympathy  with  the  raskol.  Other  ballads  of 
the  same  epoch  celebrate  the  exploits  of  Stenka  Razine, 
the  Cossack  rebel.  These  form  part  of  a  whole  pictur- 
esque cycle,  enshrining  a  series  of  similar  exploits,  in 
which  the  followers  of  the  famous  partisan  (mere  rob- 
bers, in  fact)  play  the  heroes'  parts,  after  the  quaintest 
and  most  suggestive  fashion. 

In  Kirieievski's  collection,  one  whole  volume  is  de- 
voted to  Peter  the  Great ;  but  the  popular  verse  has  not 
done  justice  to  the  Reformer.  None  but  the  external 
features  of  his  mighty  work — such  as  his  sanguinary 
extermination  of  the  Streltsy  and  his  wars — are  noticed, 
and  only  one  attractive  phase  of  his  character — his  sim- 
plicity— is  extolled. 

Seated  on  the  main  staircase  of  the  Kreml,  the 
Krasnoie-KryltsOy  the  Tsar  challenges  the  nobles  sur- 
rounding him  to  single  combat  with  theft*  fists.  The  boy- 
ards make  no  answer.  One  young  soldier,  only,  accepts 
the  challenge.     But  the  Tsar  lays  down  his  conditions. 

''  If  I  win,  thy  head  will  be  cut  off  1 " 

''  So  be  it." 

The  soldier  wins.  The  vanquished  Tsar  offers  to 
reward  him   with  lands  and  gold.     The  hero's  reply  is 


24  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

typical,  and  identical  with  that  of  the  legendary  bohatyry 
Potok,  to  Vladimir,  in  similar  circumstances. 

"  All  I  ask  is  permission  to  drink  without  payment 
in  the  Tsar's  taverns  ! " 

As  the  modern  era  approaches,  this  poetic  current 
narrows,  loses  its  depth,  its  freshness,  and  its  brightness. 
When  Alexander  I.'s  time  comes,  we  have  nought  but  a 
turbid  stream,  rolling  down  formless  heaps  of  mud — not 
a  reflection  of  Austerlitz,  Friedland,  or  Tilsit.  Moscow 
appears,  like  a  flash,  in  the  flames  kindled  by  the  hand 
of  the  Khrantzouz.  The  popular  imagination  lingers  lov- 
ingly over  the  rugged  figures  of  the  Hetman  Platov  and 
his  Cossacks.  They  are  the  heroes  of  the  great  historic 
drama.  But  historical  truth,  sincere  emotion,  and  even 
originality,  are  utterly  lacking  in  these  ballads.  The 
death  of  Alexander  I.  inspires  one  of  these  poet-narrators 
with  a  mere  transcription  of  the  Marlborough  song, 
which  had  been  already  applied,  in  the  form  of  a  filthy 
parody,  to  the  death  of  Patiomkine.  Artistic  poetry  de- 
layed long  in  coming  to  claim  the  inheritance  of  these 
degenerate  bards. 

Religious  Verse. 

The  religious  songs  contemporary  with  this  last 
evolution  of  popular  poetry  possess  a  special  character, 
for  they  have  their  springs  in  written  literature,  and  like 
it,  they  belong  totthe  Church.  And  indeed  they  do  not 
date  earlier  than  from  the  seventeenth  century.  These 
songs,  concerning  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  world, 
the  last  judgment,  St.  George,  are  for  the  most  part — like 
the  above-mentioned  literature,  which  was  first  popu- 
larised in  the  Southern  Provinces — of  Southern  origin. 
One  string  of  this  lyre — and  it  is  constantly  struck — is 


THE  BAND   OF  IGOR  25 

sacred  to  the  Raskol,  and  is  used,  more  especially,  to  call 
up  the  figure  of  Antichrist.  Invisibly,  and  even  visibly, 
according  to  the  teaching  of  certain  sects,  the  reign  of 
Antichrist  begins,  in  Church  and  Empire  alike,  from  the 
seventeenth  century  onward. 

One  form  taken  by  this  poetry  is  that  of  legends, 
prose  narratives  of  a  religious  nature,  drawn  indifferently 
from  the  Holy  Books  and  from  apocryphal  sources. 
The  Devil  hindering  Noah  from  building  his  ark,  Solomon 
taking  into  his  head  to  found  a  monastery  in  hell,  and 
such  incidents,  furnish  forth  these  recitals.  I  have  re- 
served a  special  place  for  the  ^^  Story  of  the  Band  of 
Igor."  This  ballad  cannot  indeed  be  classed  with  others. 
It  is  unique. 


The  Ballad  of  the  Band  of  Igor. 

It  has  been,  and  is  still,  a  subject  of  passionate 
discussion.  The  text  of  the  poem  was  not  discovered 
until  1795,  in  a  fourteenth  or  early  fifteenth  century 
manuscript,  and  this  nothing  but  a  copy — since  the  work 
is  believed,  by  those  who  accept  it  as  authentic,  to  date 
from  the  twelfth  century.  The  copy  itself  no  longer 
exists.  It  was  burnt,  together  with  the  whole  Moussine- 
Pouchkine  library,  in  the  year  1812.  A  transcript  was 
made  for  the  Empress  Catherine  II.,  and  this  is  all 
that  remains  to  us — little  enough,  in  the  case  of  so 
priceless  a  relic,  the  sole  remaining  waif  and  witness  of 
a  vanished  and  shadowy  literary  past. 

Is  it  the  work  of  a  single  author  who  has  failed  to 
•leave  his  name  behind  him  ?  Or  does  it,  like  the  bylinesy 
represent  the  conjoint  labour  of  several  generations  of 
poets  ?     These   questions   afford   matter  for   cogitation. 


26  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

At  the  present  day,  the  hypothesis  of  an  individual 
authorship  prevails,  coupled  with  the  admission  of  the 
existence  of  an  ingenious  grouping  of  elements,  common 
to  all  the  popular  poetry  of  that  period.  This  would 
not  appear  to  be  an  isolated  case.  An  almost  equal 
variety  of  subject,  coupled  with  a  curiously  similar 
inspiration,  has  been  remarked  in  an  old  work  known 
as  the  Khalitcho'  Volhynian  Chronicle.  The  very  form 
of  the  poem  seems  to  indicate  it  as  the  work  of  an 
individual.  The  author  is  constantly  speaking  in  the 
first  person,  sometimes  to  invoke  the  memory  of  some 
forerunner  of  his  own — whom  he  calls  Boiane,  and 
our  knowledge  of  whose  existence  we  owe  to  him — 
and  sometimes  to  express  his  own  admiration  or  sorrow, 
for  he  has  not  a  touch  of  the  Homeric  calm. 

He  tells  us  the  story  of  the  expedition  led  by  Igor, 
Prince  of  Novgorod-Sievierski,  charged  by  Sviatoslav, 
Prince  of  Kiev,  to  drive  back  the  Polovtsy.  Up  to 
the  time  of  the  Tartar  invasion,  the  Polovtsy  were  the 
greatest  enemies  of  Russia.  Igor  begins  with  a  victory, 
but,  in  a  decisive  battle,  he  is  utterly  beaten  and  carried 
into  captivity.  This  event  is  attributed,  in  the  chronicle 
known  as  that  of  Ipatiev,  to  the  year  1185,  and  in  that  of 
Lavrentii,  to  the  following  one.  Both  chronicles  agree 
with  the  poet  in  ascribing  the  responsibility  for  the 
disaster  to  a  quarrel  between  the  princes.  The  poet 
adds  some  inventions  of  his  own.  Sviatoslav,  who  has 
not  left  Kiev — these  Kiev  princes  are  stay-at-home  fellows, 
and  generally  send  some  one  else  when  there  is  fighting 
to  be  done — sees  the  awful  disaster  in  a  dream.  He  hears 
the  moans  of  the  vanquished,  mingled  with  the  croaking 
of  the  ravens.  Waking,  he  learns  the  facts,  does  not 
bestir  himself,  but  sends  messengers  to  the  other  neigh- 


THE  BAND  OF  IGOR  27 

bouring  princes  beseeching  them  to  rise,  '^for  the  sake 
of  the  Russian  soil  and  the  wounds  of  Igor."  Mean- 
while, laroslavna,  the  wife  of  Igor,  shut  up  in  the  castle 
of  Poutivl,  mounts  the  walls,  and  "  mourns  like  a  lonely 
cuckoo  at  sunrise."  She  is  ready  enough  to  go  forth  I 
*'  I  will  fly  like  a  bird  towards  the  Danube.  I  will  dip 
my  sleeve  of  otter-skin  into  its  waters,  and  I  will  lave 
the  wounds  on  the  mighty  body  of  Igor  ! " 

The  denouement  is   a   triumph,  though    not   of   an 
over-heroic  nature.     Igor  escapes  from  his  prison.     The 
Polovtsy  pursue  him,  but  Nature  herself  abets  his  flight.^. 
The  woodpeckers,  tapping  on  the  tree-trunks,  show  him  / 
the  way  to  the  Doniets  ;  the  nightingales  warn  him  of  > 
the  approach  of  dawn.     He  reaches  his  home,  and  the  \ 
Danube    bears  the  voices  of  the  daughters  of    Russia,  / 
singing  the  universal  joy,  across  the  sea  to  Kiev  (sic). 

Though  this  arrangement  of  the  episode  is  weak 
enough,  both  historically  and  geographically,  it  proves 
great  wealth  of  imagination,  and  a  tolerably  intense 
poetic  feeling.  Certainly  there  has  been  an  exaggera- 
tion as  to  the  sentiments  of  a  higher  order — the  love 
of  the  Russian  Fatherland,  the  aspirations  towards 
national  unity — which  some  have  chosen  to  discover  in 
the  work.  Yet  I  cannot  share  the  absolute  scepticism 
of  certain  commentators  as  to  these  points.  Surprising 
as  the  idea  that  such  conceptions  and  emotions  should 
have  existed  round  about  Kiev  and  Novgorod,  towards 
the  year  11 85,  may  now  appear  to  us,  we  are  forced  to 
admit  that  the  Chronicle  of  Nestor  shows  us  something 
of  the  same  nature,  at  a  much  earlier  date. 

And  apart  from  this,  the  poem,  whether  its  authorship 
be  individual  or  collective,  is  a  work  of  art,  and  occa- 
sionally of  very  subtle  art.     Its  methods,  of  expression 


28  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

are  classic ;  in  the  descriptive  portions  similes  are  fre- 
quent. The  rolling  telegas  (waggons)  of  the  Polovtsy 
scream  in  the  darkness  like  a  flight  of  wild  swans.  The 
invading  army  is  likened  to  a  cloud,  which  pours  a 
murderous  rain  of  arrows. 

Another  favourite  poetic  artifice  is  the  personification 
of  the  elements.  After  Igor's  defeat,  the  grass  withers, 
the  trees  bend  under  the  weight  of  the  mourning  that 
overshadows  Russian  soil.  laroslovna  confides  her  grief 
to  the  sun,  to  the  wind,  to  the  Dnieper.  There  is  a  fine 
lyric  flow  in  her  lament. 

Some  other  passages,  though  they  appear  instinct 
with  an  equally  seductive  inspiration,  are  almost  unin- 
telligible. Even  to  Russian  readers,  other  than  archaeo- 
logists, the  poem  is  only  accessible  nowadays  through 
translations.  The  considerable  divergence  between  the 
language  of  the  original  and  that  which  obtains  in 
modern  Russia,  the  probable  corruptions  existing  in 
the  text,  and  the  allusions  it  contains  to  contemporary 
events  now  scarcely  known,  have  crammed  it  with  in- 
comprehensible enigmas. 

Thus  indeed  may  we  explain  the  doubts  which  have 
arisen  as  to  the  authenticity,  the  nature,  and  even  the 
literary  value  of  the  work.  Some  competent  judges 
have  imagined  the  whole  thing  to  be  an  imposture,  like 
that  which  victimised  Pouchkine  when,  in  all  good  faith, 
he  translated  Merimee's  Servian  Songs — a  modern  work 
in  the  pseudo-classic  style,  or  even  an  imitation  of  Ossian. 
They  have  pointed  out  suspicious  features,  evocations  of 
Stribog,  the  sea-god,  and  Dajbog,  the  sun-god — neither 
of  them  very  probable  on  the  part  of  a  court  poet  writing 
two  centuries  after  the  introduction  of  Christianity.  This 
mythological  clement  runs  through  the  whole  texture  of 


THE   BAND  OF  IGOR  29 

the  work,  round  the  figure  of  Troi'ane, — whom  some  critics 
beheve  to  be  the  Tsar-Troian  of  Bulgarian  and  Servian 
legend,  contemporary  with  the  elfs  and  the  roussalky ; 
while  others  see  in  him  the  Roman  Trajan,  whose 
memory  lingered  long  in  Dacia,  near  the  home  of  the 
Southern  Slavs.  And  what,  we  are  asked,  is  to  be 
thought  of  certain  features  evidently  borrowed  from 
Greek  literature  ?  The  invocation  to  Boiane,  with  which 
the  poem  opens,  is  almost  a  reproduction  of  a  passage 
from  Euripides. 

If  I  may  give  my  own  impression,  I  would  first  of  all 
put  aside,  in  common  with  all  Russian  critics,  the  purely 
personal  conjectures  of  the  learned  Professor  Leger,  of 
the  College  of  France,  who  sees  in  this  Story  of  the  Band 
of  Igor  an  imitation  of  the  Zadonchtchi7ta. 

This  latter  work  is  generally,  and,  as  I  believe,  justly, 
taken  to  be  an  oral  popular  production  of  the  Tartar 
epoch,    but,    unlike    it,  inspired  by  the  Slovo  0  Polkou 
Igorievic,     I  agree  with  the  majority,  as  to  the  authenti- 
city of  the  SlovOj  though  it  has  been  greatly  tampered 
with  by  copyists,  translators,  and  commentators.     Like 
Bielinski,  and  contrary,  this  time,  to  the  majority,  I  re- 
fuse to  regard  the  Story  of  the  Band  of  Igor  as  a  second 
Iliad.     I  do  not  even  place  it,  as  a  work  of  art,  on  a  par 
with  the  poems  of  the  Round  Table  Cycle.     This  work,, 
as  it  stands  at  present,  excels  them  in  that  simple  wild-., 
flower  freshness,  full  of  colour  and  perfume,  which  made  1 
so  great  an  impression  on  Bielinski.     It  is  behind  them| 
too — far    behind,    especially    as    regards    the    principal 
figure,  that  of  Igor,  w^hich  is  utterly  lifeless  and  dim.     On 
the  whole,  it  shows  great  wealth  of  form,  and  an  abso- 
lute poverty  of  idea.     Russian  life  in  the  twelfth  century"" 
.could  furnish  bul* little  of  that. 


so  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

None  the  less  does  this  poem  constitute  an  infinitely 
precious  link  between  the  oral  poetry  and  the  written 
literature  of  the  epoch  preceding  that  of  Peter  the  Great, 
of  which  I  must  now  give  a  brief  summary. 


Written  Literature  Prior  to  the  Reign  of 
Peter  the  Great. 

The  value  of  this  literary  inheritance  is  almost  purely 
historical.  As  art,  it  has  hardly  any  at  all.  Written 
literature  and  Christianity,  one  bearing  the  other  with 
it,  entered  Russia  from  Byzantium,  by  way  of  Bulgaria, 
with  the  apostles  of  the  ninth  century,  Cyril  and  Metho- 
dius.  They  translated  the  Holy  Books  into  the  Slav 
language,  and  invented  the  Slav  alphabet,  or  Kirillitsay 
so  called  to  distinguish  it  from  the  Glagolitsa  {Glagol^ 
the  word),  another  and  more  complicated  alphabet, 
adopted  by  the  South-Western  Slavs. 

The  Gospel  of  Ostroinir,  prepared  about  1050  by  the 
Scribe  Gregory  for  a  Novgorod  burgher,  and  the  re- 
ligious works  of  SviATOSLAV  ( 1 073-1 076),  are  the  most 
ancient  existing  monuments  of  the  Slavo-ecclesiastic  lan- 
guage and  the  national  literature.  During  this  period 
the  national  education  was  entirely  concentrated  in  the 
churches  and  monasteries,  and  was  consequently  im- 
pressed with  the  religious  and  Byzantine  stamp.  From 
the  literary  point  of  view,  the  Greek  influence  continued 
down  to  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  at  which 
period  Western  and  European  culture  entered  Moscow 
through  Poland. 

The  first  writers  proceeding  from  this  school  were 
monks  and  compilers.  They  do  indeed  mention  the 
presence  among  them  of  learned  men  and  philosophers, 


RELIGIOUS  LITERATURE  31 

but  it  would  hardly  be  safe  to  take  this  for  an  established 
fact.  The  Sborniki  (Collections)  of  Sviatoslav,  which 
possess  a  very  high  reputation,  the  Zlatooust  (*' Golden 
Sayings  "  of  Chrysostom),  the  Ismaragd  (emerald),  the 
Margarit  (jewel),  the  Ptchely  (bees),  are  a  mere  farrago 
of  orisons  and  homilies. 

Another  group  (called  Paleia,  from  the  ancient  Greek 
paSapa)  consists  of  versions  of  biblical  history,  in  which 
the  apocryphal  books  occupy  a  considerable  space. 

These  versions  preserved  their  authoritative  quality 
till  the  very  threshold  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

Some  of  these  ancient  works,  however,  bear  signs  of 
a  certain  amount  of  artistic  culture.  They  give  evidence 
of  a  study  of  rhetoric.  Certain  passages  in  the  S/ovo 
(discourse)  of  the  Metropolitan  Hilarion  (middle  of  the 
twelfth  century)  are  masterly,  and  we  must  go  to  Karam- 
zine  to  find  anything  to  compare  with  them.  This  dis- 
course, and  the  Story  of  the  Band  of  Igor^  constitute  the 
gem  of  this  period. 

The  essential  feature  of  this  religious  literature,  from 
the  earliest  sermons  to  Peter  the  Great's  famous  Eccle- 
siastical Regulations^  is  the  struggle  of  Church  teaching 
against  Pagan  tradition,  and  the  superstitions  and  heresies 
therewith  connected,  and  also  against  the  dualistic  cur- 
rent which  flowed  from  the  Latin  Church.  The  Raskol 
of  the  eighteenth  century  has  deep  roots  that  run  full 
four  centuries  back.  The  Strigolniki  of  the  fourteenth 
century  and  the  Jidovstvouiouchtchyte  (Hebraists)  of  the 
fifteenth  century  may  be  looked  on  as  the  ancestors 
of  the  modern  dissenters.  Hence  in  all  the  writings  of 
this  period,  even  those  on  profane  subjects,  we  perceive 
a  controversial  tendency. 

Amongst  the  profane  writers  of  the  epoch  prior  to 


32  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

the  Tartar  conquest  (eleventh  to  thirteenth  century), 
the  foremost  place  belongs  to  Nestor.  Unhappily  we 
are  not  sure  that  the  chronicle  which  bears  his  name 
was  written  by  him. 

He  was  born  about  the  year  1050.  At  the  age  of 
seventeen  he  was  in  the  PietcJiersky'Monastyr{^^Wo\'\2.'$X.Qxy 
of  the  Caves  ")  at  Kiev,  and  had  assumed  monastic  garb. 
In  1091  he  was  commissioned,  with  two  other  monks,  to 
exhume  the  relics  of  St.  Theodosius.  He  died  about 
HOC.  These  few  lines  contain  all  that  we  know  of  his 
biography.  The  works  presumed  to  be  his  are  The  Life 
of  Boris  andof  Gleby  the  Life  of  Theodosius ^  and  the  Russian 
Chronicle  {Poviest  vremiennykh  Liet), 

His  right  to  the  title  of  the  first  of  the  Lietopisiets 
(chroniclers)  has  been  contested  by  Tatichtchev.  This 
historian,  a  contemporary  of  Peter  the  Great,  has  repro- 
duced, in  his  own  History  of  Russia^  a  fragment  of  a 
chronicle  called  that  of  Joachim,  discovered  by  himself 
in  an  eighteenth-century  copy,  and  which  is  said  to 
be  the  first  chronicle  of  Novgorod  dow^n  to  the  year 
1016.  This  Joachim,  Bishop  of  Novgorod,  died  there  in 
1030.  The  original  of  the  chronicle  has  never  been 
found.  But  this  is  also  the  case  as  regards  the  chronicle 
ascribed  to  Nestor,  whose  name,  indeed,  only  appears  on 
a  single  copy,  that  known  under  the  name  of  KhliebnikoVy 
and  dating  from  the  fifteenth  or  sixteenth  century.  This 
supposed  work  by  Nestor  is  a  history  of  the  beginnings 
of  Russia,  starting,  after  the  Greek  pattern,  with  the 
Deluge.  The  ruling  "spirit  of  the  chronicle,  and  the 
quality  which  renders  it  a  singularly  expressive  docu- 
ment, is  a  mixture — amazing  for  that  epoch — of  the 
deepest  religious  feeling  wdth  the  most  ardent  patriotism. 
This  fact  is  worth  remembering.     Russian  literature,  and 


NESTOR  -  33 

Modern  Russia  herself,  are  both  the  daughters  of  this 
union.  Nestor  believes  that  every  country  has  its  guar- 
dian angel,  and  that  the  wings  of  the  angel  which  watches 
over  the  fate  of  his  own  land  are  of  exceptional  span. 
The  chronicler  is  something  of  a  poet  too.  Hear  what 
he  says  of  the  death  of  Saint  Olga  :  '^  She  beamed  on 
Christendom  like  a  morning  star.  She  shed  over  it  a  gentle 
dawn.  Amidst  the  infidels  she  shone  like  the  moon  in  the 
darkness.  .  .  .  Now  she  has  risen  before  us  to  the  Russian 
heaven^  where y  worshipped  by  the  sons  of  Russia ^  she  prays 
God  on  their  behalf!' 

The  poet  has  epic  power.  His  story  unrolls  itself 
slowly,  calmly,  with  numerous  digressions.  He  uses 
the  Slavo-ecclesiastic  or  Old  Bulgarian  tongue,  with 
some  traces — more  especially  in  the  passages  recording 
the  local  legends — of  the  old  popular  languages  of  the 
North. 

This  chronicle  goes  no  farther  than  the  year  mo. 
The  continuation  of  its  story,  to  be  found  in  the 
Collection  of  Ipatiev,  is  the  anonymous  Chronicle  of 
Kiev  (down  to  1200).  For  the  years  between  1201  and 
1292  we  have  the  Volhynian  Chronicle,  also  anonymous, 
the  earlier  portion  of  which  is  supposed  to  have  been 
lost.  And  after  1292  the  Chronicle  of  Souzdal^  or 
Chronicle  of  the  North,  is  our  chief  historical  authority. 
The  complete  collection  of  the  Lietopisy  also  contains 
four  chronicles  of  Novgorod,  covering  the  period  between 
1016  and  1716. 

All  these  works  possess  the  same  character.  Every 
event  is  considered  from  the  religious  standpoint,  and  all 
comments  are  of  a  moralising  tendency.  If,  according 
to  Nestor,  the  Guardian  Angel  permitted  the  Polovtsy  to 
invade  his  country,  it  was  as  a  punishment  for  the  sins 


34  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

committed  by  her  sons.  This  primitive  bond  of  resem- 
blance fades  out  after  the  division  of  the  country  into 
principaHties  {pudiely)^  and  the  consequent  development 
of  local  colour  among  its  chroniclers.  The  Novgorod 
chroniclers  are  curt,  dry,  precise.  They  talk  like  busi- 
ness men.  Those  of  the  Southern  regions  abound  in 
picturesque  imagery,  and  their  story  is  full  of  detail. 

After  the  unification  of  the  principalities  under  the 
Muscovite  hegemony,  a  new  type  appears — the  An- 
nals of  Sophia  (Sofiisku  Vremiennik),  and  the  chronicles 
known  as  the  Chronicle  of  NiconCy  and  that  of  the  Resur- 
rection ( Vosskressenskaid).  The  resolute  and  far-seeing 
political  spirit  which  created  this  hegemony  is  strongly 
discernible  in  these  chronicles.  The  Nestorian  Chronicle 
contains  certain  poetic  legends  which  have  been  taken 
by  some  persons  to  be  the  relics  of  an  ancient  epic,  and 
the  Volhynian  Chronicle  mentions  bards  who  sang  the 
exploits  of  their  princes. 

Until  the  Tartars  appeared,  all  literary  culture  was 
concentrated  at  Kiev  and  Novgorod.  After  the  Tartar 
invasion,  we  find  signs  of  it  in  the  North-East,  at  Vladimir, 
Rostov,  Mourom,  laroslavl,  Tver,  and  Riazan.  But  still 
it  only  existed  in  monastic  life.  What  with  the  universal 
turmoil,  the  Mongol  tyranny,  and  the  quarrels  between 
the  various  princes,  the  monastery  was  its  only  possible 
refuge.  In  the  fourteenth  century  there  were  two  hun- 
dred of  these  establishments,  the  only  spots  where  men 
read,  and  even  where  books  existed.  But  books,  and 
the  spirit  they  inspired,  were  alike  instinct  with  an  ever- 
growing and  savage  asceticism,  which  went  far  to  sup- 
press secular  literature  of  any  kind. 

In  the  fifteenth  century,  Moscow  was  a  metropolis 
in  two  senses,  the    political   and   religious  ;   but  it  had 


MOSCOW  35 

hard  work  to  become  a  centre  of  intellectual  activity. 
There  was,  indeed,  some  stirring  of  men's  souls  just  at 
this  period  ;  the  terrible  conditions  of  existence,  both 
public  and  private,  provoked  a  certain  uprising  of  the 
critical  spirit.  The  stock-in-trade  of  the  literature  of 
that  day  consists  of  religious  precepts  and  epistles  {poout- 
cJienia,  posslania).  The  Metropolitan  Foti'i  (1410-1431) 
excelled  in  this  line.  He  was  a  malcontent,  not  a  writer. 
Besides,  he  was  Greek  by  birth,  and  by  no  means  skilful 
in  the  use  of  the  Russian  tongue.  In  the  sixteenth 
century,  another  Albanian  Greek,  Maximus,  summoned 
to  Russia  to  catalogue  the  Grand-Duke's  library,  and 
translate  books  into  the  Slav  language,  travelled  much 
farther  along  the  road  thus  opened  by  his  fellow- 
countryman.  Maximus  the  Greek,  summing  up  the 
work  of  his  predecessors,  gives  us  a  full  catalogue  of 
all  the  shortcomings,  religious,  moral,  and  intellectual, 
under  which  the  contemporary  life  of  the  country 
laboured. 

Born  in  1480,  he  had  lived  at  Florence  just  after  the 
execution  of  Savonarola.  Better  for  him  if  he  had 
forgotten  it.  Accused  of  having  corrupted  the  sacred 
books,  he  was  imprisoned  in  monasteries  for  five-and- 
twenty  years,  and  died  unnoticed  in  1556,  at  the  Laura 
of  St.  Sergius.  His  justification  is  enshrined,  even  more 
clearly  than  in  his  compositions  in  his  own  defence,  in 
the  reports  of  the  Council  convoked  at  Moscow  in  1551 
by  Ivan  the  Terrible,  according  to  his  agreement  with 
the  metropolite  Macarius. 

These  are  known  as  the  Stoglav  (the  Hundred  Chap- 
ters).  All  the  Bishops  in  Russia  assembled,  at  this 
Council,  listened  to  the  address,  divided  into  thirty- 
seven  heads,  wnth  which  the  Tsar  saw  fit  to  open   the 


36  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

debate,  and  they  might  have  fancied  they  heard  Maximus 
speaking  through  the  sovereign's  mouth.  He  repro- 
duced every  item  of  the  plea  formulated  by  the  foreign 
monk.  The  decision  of  the  Council  was  a  foregone 
conclusion.  Maximus  was  left  in  prison,  but  the 
creation  of  a  certain  number  of  schools  was  decided 
on  in  principle,  and  the  opening  of  a  printing-press  was 
decreed  by  ukase.  From  this  press  issued,  between 
1563  and  1565,  a  Book  of  the  Apostles  and  a  Book  of 
Hours,  But  the  Muscovites,  docile  followers  of  their 
monkish  teachers,  took  printing  to  be  a  work  of  the 
devil,  and  the  following  year  saw  the  press  destroyed  by 
fire,  during  a  riot.  The  two  printers,  Ivan  Feodorov  and 
Peter  Timeofieiev,  only  avoided  death  by  crossing  over 
the  frontier.  They  first  of  all  worked  at  Zabloudov, 
under  the  protection  of  the  Polish  Hetman  Chodkiewicz, 
then  successively  at  Lemberg  and  Vilna,  and  finally 
at  Ostrog,  where  the  first  Slav  Bible  was  printed  in 
1581.  But  a  new  printing-press  had  already  been  set 
up  at  Moscow,  w^here  a  Psalter  appeared  in  1568. 

At  the  same  time  the  monastic  spirit  won  a  triumph 
by  the  popularisation  of  a  book  the  authorship  of 
which  was  long  attributed  to  a  contemporary  of  Ivan 
the  Terrible — the  Pope  Sylvester.  According  to  the 
latest  investigations,  only  the  fifty-second  and  closing 
chapter  of  the  Doinostro'i  can  properly  be  ascribed  to 
this  priest.  The  others  were  put  together  at  various 
periods,  and  arranged  in  order  before  the  composition 
of  the  last.  The  ideas  and  principles  expressed  reflect 
those  of  several  centuries  of  historical  life.  The  word 
Domostroi  signifies  "  House-master."  Compared  with 
the  works  of  the  same  nature  originating  in  other 
Western  countries  (such  as  Regimento  delle  Dojine^  and 


IVAN  THE  TERRIBLE  37 

the  Menagier  de  Paris  (1393),  the  Domostrot  is  distin- 
guished by  a  far  more  comprehensive  moral  teaching, 
and  also  by  a  very  special  utilitarian  tendency.  The 
directions  and  counsels  it  contains,  which  cover  the 
v^hole  of  Russian  life,  spiritual,  domestic,  and  social, 
are  all  founded  on  essentially  practical  motives.  A 
man  should  not  get  drunk,  because  that  involves  a 
risk  of  spoiling  one's  clothes  and  being  robbed  of  one's 
money.  The  Doinostro'i  even  goes  the  length  of  recom- 
mending the  use  of  certain  innocent  deceptions.  It 
defines,  after  the  most  exact  fashion,  the  respective 
duties  and  positions  of  husband  and  wife.  The  wife  is 
to  be  kind,  silent,  hard-working,  obedient,  and  she  is 
to  submit  to  physical  punishment,  administered  by  her 
husband,  gently  and  without  anger,  ^^  while  he  holds  her 
decently  by  the  handy"  and  always  in  private,  so  that 
nobody  shall  see  or  know  of  it.  The  husband  has 
supreme  power  over  the  house  and  family,  but  all  the 
internal  government  is  in  his  wife's  hands.  She  is  the 
first  to  rise  in  the  morning  ;  she  rouses  the  servants, 
and  sets  every  one  an  example  of  hard  work. 

The  Domostroi  W2is  not  printed  until  1849.  IVAN  THE 
Terrible  himself  made  an  attempt  in  the  same  direc- 
tion, after  having  left  posterity  a  literary  legacy  of 
quite  a  different  order.  His  Code^  or  Precept,  was  in- 
tended for  the  Monastery  of  St.  Cyril  at  Bieloziersk. 
This  was  a  place  of  exile  for  disgraced  Boyards  and 
Kniazi,  who,  as  a  rule,  carried  their  lay  customs  with 
them,  and  disseminated  them  largely.  The  Tsar  opens 
with  a  modest  and  pious  expression  of  his  doubts  as 
to  the  propriety  of  his  intervention.  Can  it  be  right 
that  he,  ''stinking  dog"  that  he  is,  should  teach  God's 
servants  a  lesson  ?      But  he  forthwith    recalls   the   fact 


SS  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

that  during  a  visit  to  the  monastery  he  had  an- 
nounced his  intention  of  some  day  retiring  to  it  him- 
self. The  monks,  therefore,  must  surely  count  him  as 
one  of  themselves.  That  is  their  clear  duty  !  And 
thereupon  he  starts  off  hot-foot,  his  pen,  as  sharp  as 
any  hunting-spear,  pouring  forth  a  violent  diatribe 
against  the  dissolute  life  of  the  community,  in  which, 
no  doubt,  he  suspects  his  latest  condemned  exiles, 
Cheremetiev  and  Khabarov,  to  be  deeply  involved. 

More  interesting  from  the  historical,  and  even  from 
the  literary  point  of  view,  is  Ivan's  correspondence  with 
Prince  Kourbski,  one  of  his  principal  collaborators,  who 
had  fled  to  Lithuania  after  being  defeated  in  battle. 
The  commanders  who  served  Ivan  the  Terrible,  like  the 
generals  of  the  French  Republic,  went  to  the  scaffold  if 
they  failed  to  march  to  victory. 

The  free  country  of  Poland  was  at  that  period  a 
land  of  refuge  for  her  Muscovite  neighbours.  Kourbski 
did  his  best,  during  his  exile,  to  spread  the  Orthodox 
P'aith,  but  with  this  effort  he  combined  certain  classical 
studies.  He  applied  his  mind  to  Latin,  grammar,  rhe- 
toric, and  dialectics,  and  thus  armed,  he  addressed  his 
former  sovereign  in  letters  intended  to  impress  him 
with  his  own  ignorance,  and  with  the  injustice  of  his 
behaviour.  Ivan  was  not  the  man  to  be  overawed  by 
such  learning.  His  replies  utterly  scorn  the  example  of 
oratorical  artifice  set  him  by  his  correspondent.  With- 
out affectation,  and  careless  of  all  style,  they  simply  pour 
out  his  rage  and  hatred  in  a  torrent  of  passionate  in- 
vective, and  we  perceive  that  the  master  of  rhetoric, 
the  triumphant  dialectician,  is  the  Tsar.  What  Kourbski 
and  such  traitors  say  of  his  cruelty  is  puerile,  and  their 
claim  to  call  down  God's  judgment  on  him  is  absurd. 


IVAN  THE  TERRIBLE  39 

He  loathes  bloodshed,  and  would  never  permit  it,  if  the 
crime  of  Kourbski  and  his  like  did  not  force  his  hand. 
God  will  discern  the  true  culprit  ! 

^'What  you  write  me,"  answers  Koursbi,  ''is  ridicu- 
lous, and  it  is  indecent  to  send  such  writings  into  a 
country  where  men  know  grammar,  rhetoric,  and  philo- 
sophy." 

The  correspondence  extends  over  a  period  of  sixteen 
years,  from  1563  to  1579,  and  comprises  four  letters  from 
Kourbski  and  two  of  Ivan's  replies.  The  post  travelled 
slowly  in  those  days  !  There  has  been  much  splitting 
of  hairs  over  the  value  of  the  arguments  advanced  in  this 
epistolary  tournament,  and  the  process  still  continues. 

Kourbski  also  wrote  a  History  of  Ivan  the  Terrible, 
which  is  interesting  as  being  the  first  Russian  attempt 
at  learned  composition  modelled  on  the  classics.  The 
work  is  full  of  detail,  and  has  a  picturesqueness  of  style 
which  recommends  it,  but  it  lacks  calm,  and  is  totally 
devoid  of  impartiality. 

From  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century  onwards, 
a  new  influence  becomes  evident  in  the  intellectual 
development  of  Russia.  The  presence  of  the  Jesuits, 
brought  to  Kiev  by  the  Polish  conquest,  makes  that  city 
a  centre  of  culture  of  a  comparatively  enlarged  nature, 
and  the  seat  of  a  school  of  advanced  teaching,  trans- 
formed, after  1701,  into  an  ecclesiastical  college. 

One  curious  peculiarity  of  the  teaching  of  Kiev,  and 
of  the  literary  movement  which  preceded  it,  is  that 
though  both  were  Latin  and  Roman  in  origin,  they  both 
fought  chiefly  against  Rome.  Their  chief  aim  was  the 
defence  of  orthodoxy.  Apart  from  that,  they  are  essen- 
tially scholastic  in  character.  Like  everything  Polish  of 
that  epoch,  they  pertain  to  the  Middle  Ages.     Beside  the 


40  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

rhetoric,  so  beloved  of  Kourbski,  poetry  holds  an  hon- 
oured place  at  Kiev,  and  gives  birth  to  a  bevy  of  com- 
positions wherein  religious  drama  (mysteries)  holds  the 
most  prominent  position.  This  particular  element  soon 
penetrates  as  far  as  Moscow. 

Towards  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,- 
Southern  Russia  is  severed  from  Poland.  Then  the 
intellectual  and  literary  influence  of  the  southern  focus 
takes  the  migratory  form.  In  1649,  during  the  reign 
of  Alexis  Michailovitch,  the  Boyard  Rtychtchev  sends 
for  Little-Russian  monks  to  manage  a  school  he  has 
established  near  the  monastery  of  St.  Andrew.  But 
before  long  the  local,  orthodoxy  takes  fright  at  these 
instructors.  A  struggle  begins  between  the  Greek  and 
the  Latin  system  of  instruction,  and  lasts  until  Peter 
the  Great  decides  in  favour  of  the  latter,  and  re-models 
the  Greek  Academy  at  Moscow  on  the  Kievian  lines. 
This  institution,  founded  in  1682  by  the  Tsar  Fiodor 
Alexieievitch,  appears  fated  to  undergo  periodic  changes 
of  name  and  management.  In  its  Greek  period  it  was 
chiefiy  occupied — under  the  direction  of  the  famous 
Patriarch  Nicone,  assisted  by  one  of  the  monks  sum- 
moned by  Rtychtchev,  Epiphane  Slavetsky — with  in- 
augurating the  correction  of  the  Sacred  Books.  The 
result  of  this  work,  which  its  opponents  held  to  be 
suspicious  and  irreverent,  was  the  Raskol. 

At  last,  with  the  appearance  of  the  learned  men  of 
Kiev  and  the  establishment  of  schools,  profane  science 
took  root  at  Moscow.  Its  first  steps  were  modest  indeed. 
Literally,  it  had  to  begin  with  the  alphabet.  The  first 
national  alphabet  had  been  published  at  Vilna  in  1596. 
It  was  not  till  1648  that  the  grammar  of  MeMtii  Smotrytski 
was  printed  at  Moscow.     This  was  followed,  early  in  the 


KOTOCHIKHINE  41 

eighteenth  century,  by  those  of  Fiodor  Pohkarpov  (1721) 
and  Fiodor  Maksimov  (1723),  which  remained  the  authori- 
ties until  the  pubHcation  of  Lomonossov's  work  (1755). 

A  few  attempts  at  bibUography  and  lexicography 
accompany  these  elementary  productions,  together  with 
some  accounts  of  travel,  chronicles,  and  the  TcJieti-Minei 
('^  Ecclesiastical  Years"),  a  very  popular  work  of  encyclo- 
paedic hagiography,  by  Danilo  Touptala  (St.  Demetrius 
of  Rostov).  It  seems,  in  this  book,  as  though  Orthodox 
and  ascetic  Russia,  standing  on  the  threshold  of  a  new 
epoch,  were  casting  back  a  glance  fraught  with  terror 
and  regret.  Yet  even  in  these  pages  the  modern  spirit 
stirs.  The  author  follows  Western  models.  He  has 
both  Simeon  the  Metaphrast  and  the  Bollandists  under 
his  hand.  Danilo,  indeed,  who  was  born  in  165 1,  in  the 
province  of  Kiev,  of  a  noble  Cossack  family,  and  lived 
both  at  Vilna  and  at  Sloutsk,  was  himself  the  child  of 
Little-Russian  soil  and  Polish  culture.  The  foreign  and 
Western  element  also  made  itself  evident  in  two  literary 
productions  of  very  dissimilar  natures.  Russia  under 
Alexis  Mikhatlovitchy  by  Kotochikhine,  and  The  Russian 
Empii^e  in  the  Middle  of  the  Eighteenth  Centuryy  by 
Jourii  Krijanitch. 

Kotochikhine  and  Kroanitch. 

Kotochikhine,  an  employe  in  the  Foreign  OfBce 
(Possolskoi  Prikaze)y  who  took  refuge  at  a  later  period  in 
Poland,  and  afterwards  in  Sweden,  where  he  wrote  his 
book,  is  a  second  Kourbski,  with  a  wider  intelligence. 
He  struck  the  first  note  in  that  literary  concert  of  accusa- 
tion and  divulgation  which  in  our  day  has  made  the  name 
of   such    men    as   Herzen,   Chtchedrine,  and   Pissemski. 


42  RUSSIAN    LITERATURE 

He  boldly  lays  his  hand  even  on  the  family  matters  of 
his  sovereign,  revealing  his  moral  poverty,  his  coarse 
habits,  his  lack  of  education.  He  denounces  the  ignor- 
ance, the  bad  faith,  the  robbery,  rampant  on  every  step 
of  the  social  ladder.  He  has  been  taxed,  in  Russia,  with 
spite  and  prejudice  ;  but  he  is  too  objective  and  too  cold 
to  deserve  this  reproach.  He  never  declaims,  he  merely 
quotes  facts,  and  he  is  authoritatively  confirmed  in  two 
quarters — by  Pope  Sylvester  with  his  Domosti^oi^  and  by 
Peter  the  Great  with  his  reforms.  His  end  was  tragic. 
In  1667,  when  he  was  only  thirty-seven,  he  went  to  the 
scaffold  in  expiation  of  a  murder  committed  in  Stock- 
holm, the  circumstances  of  which  have  never  been 
clearly  ascertained.  The  manuscript  of  his  book  was 
only  discovered  in  the  Upsala  Library  in  1837. 

Kotochikhine,  like  his  modern  imitators,  confined 
himself  to  pointing  out  the  evil  without  suggesting  any 
remedy.  The  Servian  Kruanitch,  on  the  contrary,  is  a 
doctor  for  every  disease,  ready  with  both  diagnosis  and 
prescription.  He  was  a  reformer,  a  Catholic  priest 
who  had  studied  at  Agram,  at  Vienna,  and  at  Rome, 
where,  while  writing  a  book  on  the  great  Schism,  he  was 
bitten  with  the  mania  for  reuniting  the  two  Churches. 
He  reached  Moscow  in  1658,  bubbling  over  with  splen- 
did plans.  Three  years  later  we  find  him  at  Tobolsk, 
in  the  depths  of  Siberia.  What  caused  this  disgrace  ? 
We  know  not.  It  lasted  till  1676,  and  in  his  distant  exile 
the  unhappy  man  composed  all  his  works — a  grammar 
and  a  book  on  politics,  which  was  published,  but  not 
until  i860,  by  Bezsonov,  under  the  title  already  men- 
tioned. It  gives  us,  in  a  series  of  dialogues,  a  complete 
plan  of  political  and  social  reorganisation  on  Western 
lines,  and  a  fancy  picture  of  a  reformed  Russia. 


KRIJANITCH  43 

Krijanitch's  work  being,  like  that  of  Kotochikhine, 
proscribed  and  ignored,  counted  for  naught  in  the  intel- 
lectual movement  of  the  times.  Yet  it  heralded  the 
advent  of  a  new  world.  When  the  Protopope  Avva- 
koume  raised  his  protest  against  the  correction  of  the 
Sacred  Books,  the  knell  of  ancient  Russia  was  ringing 
in  his  ears.  The  purging  of  the  original  texts  was  only 
one  of  the  many  signs  of  the  crumbling  of  the  old  foun- 
dations, religious  and  social.  When  this  was  under- 
taken, the  critical  spirit  entered  the  charmed  circle 
wherein  for  centuries  the  national  spirit  had  slumbered 
on  its  bed  of  idleness,  of  ignorance,  and  of  superstition, 
and  the  outer  air  swept  in  through  the  breach  opened 
towards  Europe.  The  Russia  of  Alexis  woke  to  the 
memory  of  a  past  when  she  had  seen  Greek  artists  at 
Kiev,  German  artisans  at  Novgorod  and  Pskov,  Italian 
architects  even  in  far  distant  Vladimir,  and  held  fami- 
liar intercourse  with  the  Christian  princes  of  the  West. 
The  foreign  immigration  had  recommenced  even  under 
Ivan  III.,  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth  century.  The 
thread  of  tradition  was  taken  up  again,  when  that  Tsar 
chose  Sophia  Paleologus,  a  Greek  princess  brought  up 
at  Rome,  to  be  his  partner.  When  she  brought  over 
Fioravanti,  the  Italian  architect.  Western  art  once  more 
took  up  its  quarters  on  Russian  soil.  Early  in  the  follow- 
ing century,  Herberstein  already  mentions  a  beginning 
of  European  life  at  Moscow — the  German  *^  Faubourg." 
One  of  the  most  curious  traits  in  the  character  of  Ivan 
the  Terrible  is  his  mania  for  things  English.  At  one 
time  we  find  him  dreaming  of  an  interview  with  Queen 
Elizabeth,  and  obstinately  clinging  to  his  dream.  Later, 
and  this  at  the  close  of  his  life,  his  heart  is  set  on  marry- 
ing Mary  Hastings.     At  certain  moments  of  moral  con- 


44  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

vulsion,   the   idea   of   retiring   permanently  to   England 
tempted  him,  and  even  haunted  his  fevered  brain. 

Under  Alexis,  the  German,  or  rather  the  cosmopolitan 
'*  Faubourg,"  attained  civic  rights.  Its  special  life  be- 
came an  integral  part  of  the  local  existence.  Yet  the 
civilising  influence  still  needed  a  conductor,  and  the  part 
devolved  on  the  Little-Russian  element.  This  possessed 
a  twofold  principle  of  relative  knowledge  and  anti- 
catholicism^  which  facilitated  its  mission.  The  first 
workers  of  the  renaissance  which  was  to  transform 
Moscow  issued  from  this  group,  but  their  labour  must 
be  judged  more  by  the  spirit  than  by  the  letter  of  their 
writings. 

The  Renaissance. 

One  of  the  Little-Russian  priests  who  arrived  in  the 
capital  at  this  period,  SiMEON  POLOTSKI,  had  all  the  air 
of  a  court  abbe.  He  gave  lessons  in  literature  in  the 
sovereign's  family,  and  wrote  verses  for  special  occa- 
sions. These  monks  of  Kiev  introduced  the  art  of 
poetry  as  well  as  the  elements  of  Western  science. 
Simeon,  who  was  tutor  to  Alexis,  and  then  to  his  brother 
Fiodor,  also  wielded  a  decisive  influence  over  the 
education  of  Sofia,  sister  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  his 
predecessor  at  the  head  of  the  state.  His  books  on 
religious  controversy  are  interspersed  with  scientific 
digressions.  His  views  on  cosmology  are  somewhat 
peculiar.  He  believed  the  sky  to  be  a  great  crystal 
sphere,  wherein  the  stars  are  fixed.  He  also  thought  he 
knew  the  sun  to  be  a  hundred  times  larger  than  the 
earth,  and  that  the  universe  measured  exactly  428,550 
versts.  He  was  a  poet^  and  wrote  plays — Nebuchadnezzar 
and  The  Prodigal  Son^  which  were  played  at  court  and  in 


ROMANCES  45 

the  schools.  In  The  Prodigal  Son  we  have  a  thinly  veiled 
criticism  of  the  over-despotic  conditions  of  family  life. 
In  1672,  Johann  Gottfried  Gregori,  a  German,  installed 
himself  in  the  Faubourg  with  his  troupe  of  performers. 
Moscow  had  a  theatre,  and  before  long  she  had  a  school 
of  dramatic  art.  Natalia  Narychkine,  the  second  wife  of 
Alexis,  opened  the  gates  of  the  Kremlin  to  the  actors. 
Unknown  rivals  and  forerunners  of  Racine  set  the  story 
of  Esther  and  Ahasuerus  on  the  stage,  and  Sofia  intro- 
duced the  works  of  Moliere. 

After  the  drama  comes  the  novel.  This  form  of 
narrative  had  long  been  familiar  and  popular  in  Russia. 
Until  the  sixteenth  century,  it  preserved  the  Byzantine 
type,  in  the  form  of  adaptations  of  the  apocryphal 
legends,  which  had  a  large  circulation.  It  ultimately 
underwent  the  Western  influence,  and  received,  by  way 
of  Poland,. the  elements,  strangely  corrupted  and  traves- 
tied, of  the  Romance  of  Chivalry.  But  presently,  in  a 
group  of  anonymous  works,  of  which  The  Adventures  of 
Frol  SkobieieVy  the  seducer  of  Annouchka,  daughter  of  the 
Stolnik  {dapifer)  Nachtchokine,  is  the  most  characteristic, 
we  observe  a  perfectly  fresh  type.  Not  a  trace  of 
fancy  have  we  here,  but  the  sharpest  observation  of 
contemporary  life,  a  reproduction,  faithful  to  triviality, 
of  its  least  attractive  aspects — in  a  word,  all  the  essen- 
tial features  of  the  modern  realists.  Frol,  a  profes- 
sional pettifogger,  openly  dubbed  a  thief  and  rogue  by 
Annouchka's  father,  attains  his  end  by  dint  of  boldness, 
cunning,  and  bribery.  He  carries  off  the  fair  lady  and 
wins  the  pardon  of  the  indignant  Boyard,  who  leaves 
him  all  his  fortune.  In  spite  of  the  evident  influence  of 
the  German  Schelinen- Romanes  we  here  find  an  undoubted 
vein  of  originality,  which,  checked  by  the  general  current 


46  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

of  foreign  importation,  will  scarcely  reappear  until  the 
time  of  Gogol.  Frol  Skobieiev  is  the  lineal  ancestor  of 
Tchitchikov  in  Dead  Souls  ;  and  this  Russian  romance  of 
the  seventeenth  century  may  be  taken  to  be  a  literary 
treasure  not  equalled  by  any  other  works  of  the  periods 
of  Peter  the  Great  and  of  the  great  Catherine. 

In  any  case,  it  constitutes  an  extremely  interesting  and 
significant  phenomenon.  It  consummates  the  rupture, 
partial  at  all  events,  with  those  superannuated  traditions 
which  trammelled  the  Russian  genius  for  so  long  a 
period.  The  evolution  which  in  Italy  was  foreshadowed 
by  Dante  and  realised  by  Petrarch,  the  conquest  of 
literature  by  life  and  our  common  humanity,  with  all 
its  contingent  circumstances,  is  accomplished,  in  the 
Fatherland  of  Peter  the  Great,  on  the  very  eve  of  the 
advent  of  the  great  Reformer,  while  the  special  tendencies 
to  which  Gogol,  Tourgueniev,  and  Dostoievski  were  to 
impart  their  full  scope  begin,  already  and  simultaneously, 
to  make  themselves  felt. 

Simeon  Polotski,  dying  in  1680,  was  replaced  as  court 
poet  by  his  own  pupil,  Sylvester  Miedviediev,  who  had 
spent  a  considerable  time  in  Poland. 

Following  his  predecessor's  lead,  he  founded  a  school 
for  the  teaching  of  Latin,  and  he  also  succeeded  him  as 
leader  of  the  party  opposed  to  the  Greek  tradition. 

The  end  of  the  struggle  was  tragic  and  unexpected. 
Miedviediev,  the  favourite  of  Sofia,  was  mixed  up  in  the 
quarrel  between  the  Regent  and  her  brother,  and  in  it 
he  lost  his  life.  The  Greek  party  enjoyed  a  momentary 
triumph.  I  have  demonstrated  elsewhere  the  manner 
in  which  this  transient  victory  brought  the  victors  to 
confusion.  I  will  here  describe  how  Miedviediev  was 
avenged  by  the  author  of  his  punishment. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE     RENAISSANCE 

The  thinking  world  of  Russia  at  the  end  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  has  been  compared  to  a  great  raft 
floating  unanchored,  drawn,  indeed,  eastward  towards 
Asia,  by  the  current  of  its  natural  traditions,  but  sud- 
denly cast  in  an  opposite  direction  by  some  violent  and 
merciless  eddy.  This  idea  still  lingers  in  Western  litera- 
ture. It  is  as  false  as  most  stereotyped  assertions  of 
the  kind.  The  eastward  tendency  is,  on  the  contrary, 
a  quite  modern  phenomenon  in  the  history  of  Russian 
civilisation.  It  dates  from  yesterday,  and  its  nature, 
so  far,  remains  purely  political,  economic,  and  industrial. 
From  a  more  general  point  of  view,  the  tendency  of 
the  national  life,  though  drawn  even  at  Kiev,  as  at 
Novgorod,  from  the  Byzantine  East,  was  to  develop 
itself  in  quite  the  contrary  direction.  Kiev  entered 
into  relations  with  Germany,  and  even  with  France. 
Novgorod  opened  the  Baltic  roads  towards  the  West. 
The  Tartar  invasion  checked  all  these  puttings  forth, 
but  it  did  not  replace  them  with  any  in  a  different 
direction.  The  "intellectuals"  of  the  sixteenth  century 
did  not  attempt,  during  their  quarrel  with  the  despotism 
resulting  from  the  Mongol  conquest,  to  seek  refuge  in 
Asia.  W^e  know  whither  Kourbski  fled.  In  the  follow- 
ing century,  Peter  the  Great  neither  sent  for  the 
Italian   artists,  who  had  then  already  rebuilt   Moscow, 


48  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

nor  for  the  Little  Russian  monks,  who,  before  his  time, 
had  laboured  to  reform  the  schools.  He  simply  hurried 
forward,  with  his  eager  spirit,  the  slow  progress  which 
was  already  carrying  his  bark  steadily  westward.  He 
swelled  the  sails,  he  made  the  rowers  pant  for  breath, 
and  grasped  the  helm  with  steady  hand ;  but  the  vessel's 
course  was  laid  already. 

Some  impenitent  Slavophils  do  indeed  still  cast  as  a 
crime  in  the  great  Reformer's  teeth,  that  he  broke  the 
link  which  should,  according  to  their  view,  have  bound 
the  progress  of  their  country's  civilisation  to  the  original 
manifestations  of  the  national  genius.  But  this  rupture 
is  purely  imaginary.  The  threads  which  bound  the 
Russia  of  the  seventeenth  century  to  her  semi-oriental 
origin  bind  her  to  it  still.  We  shall  trace  them  even 
in  the  Russian  literature  of  this  present  century.  They 
are  scarcely  apparent  in  that  which  was  contemporary 
with  Peter  the  Great.  But  this  is  the  common  story 
of  every  modern  literature.  There  is  not  one  w^hich, 
like  that  of  the  Greeks,  is  the  direct  and  organic  out- 
come of  the  national  inspiration.  The  Renaissance 
makes  them  all,  in  the  first  place,  the  adopted  children 
of  Rome  and  Athens,  and  after  this  each  goes  back  to, 
and  discovers,  the  secret  of  its  own  origin.  Russia  has 
perforce  followed  this  law.  In  her  case,  the  period  of 
Peter  the  Great  was  no  more  than  the  hasty  accom- 
plishment of  that  tardy  Renaissance,  the  first  symp- 
toms of  which  I  have  described  in  the  preceding 
chapter.  Yet  one  difference  exists,  and  one  cause  of 
inferiority,  between  the  Russian  evolution  and  that  of 
its  Western  rivals.  The  Greek  culture,  instead  of  per- 
colating through  the  Latin  medium  alone,  has  been 
fain     to    reach     the     Muscovite    through     several — the 


PETER  THE  GREAT  49 

Polish  influence,  then  the  German,  the  French  and 
Enghsh. 

The  personal  share  of  the  Reformer  in  this  process 
is  clearly  expressed  and  summed  up  in  the  great  scien- 
tific institution  which  he  planned,  and  which  was  not 
established  until  after  his  death.  The  Slavo- Latin 
Academy  at  Moscow  did  not  satisfy  him.  He  desired 
to  have  another  at  St.  Petersburg,  modelled  on  Euro- 
pean lines,  and  according  to  the  plan  suggested  to  him 
by  Leibnitz.  But  his  second  German  adviser,  Wolff, 
was  in  favour  of  a  university,  and  a  third  argued  that 
in  a  country  where  schools  were  lacking  it  might  be 
wise  to  begin  with  a  Gymnasium.  After  prolonged 
hesitation,  which  must  have  tried  a  man  of  his  tem- 
perament severely,  Peter  resolved  to  combine  all  these 
desiderata,  and  planned  an  institution  to  combine  all 
the  three  types  suggested.  But  the  university  remained 
a  mere  paper  plan,  and  the  gymnasium  met  with  woeful 
difficulties.  In  1730  there  were  only  thirty-six  pupils 
on  the  books,  and  twenty  of  them  were  non-attendants, 
for  Peter,  always  short  of  men,  was  employing  them 
elsewhere.  In  1756  the  roll  dwindled  to  nineteen.  The 
academy  alone  prospered.  Academicians  are  always 
to  be  had.  Some  came  from  Germany,  and  some  even 
from  France. 

These,  in  the  Reformer's  eyes,  were  pioneers,  whom 
he  expected  to  open  up  the  country  to  cultivation.  In 
the  furrows  they  ploughed,  the  seed  for  future  harvests 
was  to  be  sown  broadcast.  First  he  would  have  trans- 
lations,— and  the  great  man  worked  at  them  himself, 
swearing  at  German  prolixity  meanwhile.  To  the  native 
writers  he  assigned,  for  the  moment,  a  less  dignified  part. 
They  were,  like  himself,  to  put  themselves  to  the  Western 


50  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

school,  and  then  to  second  his  efforts  to  bring  the  lessons 
there  learnt  into  practice.  Every  branch  of  literary  pro- 
duction was  forced  to  serve  this  double  end.  Thus  a 
dramatic  piece  played  in  the  Red  Square  at  Moscow 
was  nothing  but  a  paraphrase  of  the  official  announce- 
ment of  a  victory  over  the  Swedes,  and  a  sermon  preached 
in  the  Cathedral  of  the  Assumption  was  a  commentary 
on  a  decree  published  the  day  before  its  delivery. 

Sometimes  these  theatrical  representations  slipped 
from  the  hand  which  generally  directed  them,  and  went 
into  opposition  ;  this  more  especially  in  the  case  of  the 
'^  interludes,"  burlesque  dialogues,  which  were  generally 
played  in  private  houses,  though,  following  the  demo- 
cratic habits  of  the  place,  the  public  of  every  class  had 
free  access  to  the  performance.  On  these  occasions  the 
popular  opposition  to  the  reforms,  and  chiefly  to  the 
reform  in  the  national  dress,  so  hateful  to  the  lower 
classes,  was  expressed  in  the  boldest  sallies.  Peter  took 
no  heed,  and  rather  challenged  his  adversaries  on  their 
own  ground  than  gave  any  hint  of  the  future  severities 
of  the  censorship.  However  much  his  temperament, 
his  taste  for  rough  undignified  amusements,  his  inclina- 
tion to  exaggeration,  may  have  led  him  in  the  direction 
of  those  masquerades  and  buffooneries  and  those  licen- 
tious parodies,  wherein  he  spent  his  wits  and  prostituted 
his  dignity  (and  I  have  elsewhere  admitted  the  excess  of 
which  he  was  guilty  in  this  respect),  he  certainly  nursed 
thoughts  of  a  higher  nature  through  it  all.  He  desired 
to  drag  his  people  out  of  the  old  Byzantine  rut.  He 
meant  to  enfranchise  the  public  mind,  even  at  the  expense 
of  horrid  profanation.  The  national  genius  sat  huddled 
under  the  shade  of  the  national  cathedrals.  Peter  was 
resolved  to  drag  out  the  priest,  even  if  he  had  to  cast  him 


PROKOPOVITCH  :  JAVORSKI  51 

into  the  kennel.  The  most  eminent  writer,  even  of  that 
period,  was  still  a  bishop,  a  prelate  given  to  worldly 
matters,  suspected  of  being  a  Protestant,  if  not  a  free- 
thinker. The  one  literary  work  which  stands  out  above 
the  contemporary  medley  of  compilations  and  hasty 
adaptations  is  the  Ecclesiastical  Regulations.  This  is,  above 
all  things,  a  pamphlet  directed  against  the  monastic  life 
of   that   epoch.     The  name   of   its  author  was  Feofan 

PROKOPOVITCH. 

In  this  struggle  within  the  very  walls  of  the  temple, 
two  priests,  of  similar  origin,  widely  different  in  feeling 
and  education,  stood  face  to  face.  Stephen  Javorski 
(1658-1722),  a  Little-Russian  by  birth,  brought  up  in  the 
Polish  schools  at  Lemberg  and  Posen,  succeeded  the  last 
Patriarch,  Adrian,  in  1702,  as  ''  temporary  guardian  "  of 
a  throne  that  was  never  to  be  filled  again.  A  man  of 
poor  education,  except  in  church  matters,  he  began  by 
swimming  with  the  new  current.  Then,  taking  fright,  he 
fought  against  it,  calling  all  the  dignity  of  his  sacerdotal 
vestments,  and  of  the  traditions  they  represented,  to  his 
aid.  Peter  was  thus  fain  to  seek  some  more  determined 
adept  in  reforming  ideas  to  oppose  this  backslider. 

Feofan  Prokopovitch  (1681-1736),  the  son  of  a  Ki^v 
merchant,  had  also  made  a  stay  in  Poland,  and  even  went 
so  far  as  to  accept  the  tinion,  with  the  habit  of  the 
Basilian  Fathers  at  Witepsk.  Yet  he  was  deemed  worthy 
of  Rome  and  of  the  Missionary  College  of  St.  Athanasius. 
But  the  neighbourhood  of  St  Peter's  influenced  his 
borrowed  Catholicism  in  a  manner  very  different  from 
that  which  had  been  expected.  Within  two  years  Feofan 
went  back  to  Kidv  and  to  the  bosom  of  the  Orthodox 
Church.  Yet  not  in  vain  had  he  travelled  across  Europe, 
and  been  brought  into  touch  with  her  intellectual  life. 


5  2  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

He  taught  theology  at  Ki^v,  but  he  forsook  the  scholastic 
methods,  and  followed  those  of  the  Protestant  doctors. 
Gerhard  was  his  master,  and  he  drew  his  inspiration  from 
Auerstedt.  At  the  same  time,  he  utilised  his  leisure  time 
in  composing  verses,  plays,  and  a  dissertation  on  poetry, 
which  was  published  after  his  death  in  1756. 

We  must  observe,  that  at  this  moment  Peter  was 
only  just  beginning  his  career,  and  that  no  sign  of  his 
future  work  had  yet  appeared.  The  helm  of  the  great 
ship,  still  worked  by  a  temporary  crew,  had  hitherto  felt 
no  strong  hand  upon  it.  And  yet  this  lonely  monk  was 
already  steering  his  frail  bark  towards  the  light.  It  was 
not  until  1709  that  he  attracted  the  Tsar's  attention,  by  a 
sermon  preached  on  the  occasion  of  the  victory  of  Pol- 
tava. He  was  summoned  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  from 
that  time  we  see  him  the  Tsar's  mouthpiece  in  the  pulpit 
and  the  press,  the  semi-official  interpreter  and  apolo- 
gist of  his  master's  policy.  He  will  help  him  in  all  his 
plans  for  reform.  Preaching  on  the  Tsarevitch's  birth- 
day, October  18,  1706,  he  will  sum  up  the  work  already 
accomplished,  and  compare  the  ancient  condition  of 
Russia  with  her  present  state.  To  establish  the  sove- 
reign's right  to  choose  his  own  successor,  he  will  write 
that  Pravda  voli  Monarche'i  (''Truth  of  the  Sovereign's 
Will  ")  which  has  become  the  corner-stone  of  the  political 
edifice  left  by  the  Reformer  to  his  heirs ;  and  in  1721,  in 
his  Ecclesiastical  Regulations^  which  prefaced  the  final 
suppression  of  the  Patriarchate  and  the  institution  of  the 
Holy  Synod,  he  will  lay  the  foundations  of  the  reor- 
ganisation of  the  Russian  clergy. 

Appointed  Bishop  of  Pskov  in  171 8  (against  Javorski's 
will),  he  became  the  second  member  of  the  Holy  Synod 
in  1 72 1,  and  in  1724  he  was  made  Archbishop  of  Nov- 


PROKOPOVITCH  53 

gorod.  His  position  in  the  Church,  supported  as  he 
was  by  the  Tsar's  favour  and  authority,  was  really  un- 
rivalled. He  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  suppression  of 
the  Kamieqne  Vieri  ('^ Stone  of  the  Faith"),  a  religious  con- 
troversial work  in  which  Javorski  formulated  the  protest 
of  the  ancient  Church  against  her  would-be  reformers. 
The  author  was  to  have  his  revenge.  In  1729,  when 
Peter  was  dead,  the  Kamieqne  was  published,  and  made 
a  stir  which  was  felt  beyond  the  Russian  frontier.  Two 
Germans,  Buddaeus  and  Mosheim,  replied  to  the  argu- 
ments of  a  Spanish  Dominican,  Ribeira,  who  had  followed 
the  Duke  of  Liria,  ambassador  of  the  Most  Catholic  King, 
to  St.  Petersburg,  in  a  dispute  which  was  destined  to  last 
over  the  whole  of  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century. 
This  was  a  direct  blow  at  Prokopovitch.  To  defend  the 
position  thus  threatened,  he  deliberately  threw  himself 
into  the  thick  of  the  struggles  and  political  intrigues  which 
were  another  legacy  from  the  great  Tsar's  reign,  and 
which  were  to  continue  till  the  accession  of  Catherine 
II.  Nevertheless  he  remained  in  the  forefront  of  the 
intellectual  movement  of  his  day — not  without  a  certain 
alarm  and  simple  surprise  at  the  unforeseen  extent  of 
the  horizon  he  himself  was  labouring  to  unveil,  and  the 
knowledge  thereby  acquired,  together  with  a  different 
and  altogether  secular  sense  of  anxiety  with  regard  to  the 
mystery  beyond  this  life,  which  his  newly-awakened  ima- 
gination painted  in  colours  hitherto  unknown. 

"  Oh^  head !  head!  thou  hast  groivn  drunk  with  learn- 
ing;  where  wilt  thou  rest  thee  now  ?  "  Thus  he  was  heard 
to  murmur  on  his  death-bed.  He  had  lived  the  life 
of  a  modern  man  in  his  fine  house  on  the  Karpovka, 
an  affluent  of  the  Neva,  on  whose  waters  a  flotilla 
of  boats  always  lay,    in  readiness  to   transport  him  to 


54  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

some  one  of  his  other  residences.  At  Karpovka  he  had 
a  Hbrary  of  30,000  volumes,  and  a  school  for  secondary 
education,  which  was  the  best  of  that  period.  Here 
he  received  the  most  eminent  men  of  the  day — D.  M. 
Galitsine,  Tatichtchev,  Kantemir,  and  the  foreign  mem- 
bers of  the  Academy,  one  of  whom,  Baier,  dedicated  his 
Museum  Sinicuin  to  him.  Up  to  the  very  end,  he  never 
ceased  to  take  his  part  in  every  manifestation  of  literary 
and  scientific  activity  ;  he  wrote  verses  to  greet  the 
dawn  of  a  new  art  in  Kantemir's  first  satire,  and  he 
was  the  protector  of  Lomonossov.  The  only  thing  lack- 
ing to  his  glory  was  to  have  known  and  appreciated 
Possochkov. 

In  Possochkov  we  have  another  Russian  who  turned 
to  the  West  without  waiting  for  Peter  and  his  reforms. 
He  was  a  peasant,  born  about  1673,  in  a  village  near 
Moscow.  How  did  he  learn  to  read,  to  write,  to  think  ? 
It  is  a  mystery.  He  felt  the  stirring  of  the  springs 
of  water  destined  to  flow  over  this  remote  country, 
hidden  under  its  crust  of  barbarism,  and  forthwith 
he  too  launched  his  little  boat.  Instinct  made  him  a 
mechanician  and  a  naturalist.  He  was  soon  to  be  a 
philosopher.  Meanwhile,  while  he  eagerly  studied  the 
properties  of  sulphur,  of  asphalt,  of  naphtha,  he  earned 
an  honest  competency  by  selling  brandy.  He  came  of 
an  industrious  race.  By  1724,  Possochkov  had  bought 
a  landed  property  and  set  up  a  factory.  Thus,  though 
unknown  to  the  Reformer,  he  was  bearing  his  share  in 
the  Reform — I  mean,  in  the  general  progress  which  was 
its  aim.  Yet  he  was  conservative,  after  his  own  fashion. 
In  the  Precepts  for  my  Sotiy  which  constitute  his  first 
attempt  at  authorship,  he  still  appears  wedded  to  the 
traditions  of   the  Domostroiy   and  exalts  ancient,  at  the 


POSSOCHKOV  55 

expense  of  modern,  Russia,  wherein  many  things,  and 
more  especially  the  pre-eminence  given  to  foreigners, 
displease  him.  But  these  very  Precepts  were  a  sort 
of  vade  mecum  for  the  use  of  his  son  during  a  tour  in 
Europe,  w^hich  he  proposes  to  make  with  his  father's 
full  consent. 

And  Possochkov  went  further  yet.  As  the  close  of  the 
great  Tsar's  reign  approached,  he  seemed  to  rouse  himself 
out  of  the  half-slumber  which  had  prevented  him  from 
reahsing  the  new  world  created  around  him.  And  w-e 
see  him  paying  homage  to  Peter  in  a  book  which  is  a 
creation  in  itself — a  book  dealing  with  poverty  and  riches ! 
We  must  not  forget  that  at  this  moment  Adam  Smith 
had  only  just  seen  the  light  in  England,  and  that  the 
physiocratic  school  had  not  yet  appeared  in  France.  In 
spite  of  its  strange  medley  of  bold  ideas,  truisms,  and 
absurdities,  Possochkov's  work  is  absolutely  original. 
It  was  a  bold  stroke  on  his  part  to  found  his  argu- 
ment on  the  principle  that  the  wealth  of  all  empire  lies, 
not  in  the  sovereign's  treasury,  but  in  the  possessions 
of  his  subjects.  To  increase  these  last  in  Russia,  the 
former  adherent  of  the  Domostroi  now  deems  a  radical 
reform  in  manners  and  customs  indispensable.  His 
study  of  the  national  resources  has  convinced  him  that 
idleness,  drunkenness,  and  theft  constitute  an  intolerable 
obstacle  to  their  natural  development.  But  how  is  this 
obstacle  to  be  removed  ?  By  the  means  conceived  by 
Peter  himself.  Schools  !  Schools  everywhere,  for  every 
one.  Like  all  other  theorists,  whether  autodidact  or 
neophyte,  Possochkov  is  a  Radical.  He  demands  com- 
pulsory and  universal  education.  He  does  not  even 
except  his  brother  peasants.  He  considers,  besides,  the 
question  of  improving  their  condition.     By  suppressing 


56  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

serfdom  ?  No,  he  does  not  go  those  lengths.  Himself 
a  landed  proprietor  and  a  fabtory-owner,  he  owns  serfs, 
and  could  not  well  do  without  them.  So  he  juggles 
with  the  difficulty,  and  comes  to  the  very  odd  conclu- 
sion that  in  this  matter  the  best  way  of  easing  the  law 
is  to  strengthen  it  !  If  the  serf  becomes  the  master's 
chattel  even  more  completely  than  before,  he  stands  the 
chance  of  better  treatment  ! 

Some  indulgence  must  be  granted  to  neophytes. 
None  the  less  did  Possochkov  deserve  a  welcome  from 
the  great  man  whose  views  he  had  come  to  share, 
though  somewhat  tardily.  But  it  was  too  late  !  Peter 
was  dying.  And  in  the  eyes  of  his  successors  the  man 
who  cared  so  little  for  the  Imperial  Treasury  was  no 
better  than  a  traitor.  Possochkov  was  arrested,  shut  up 
in  a  casemate  in  the  fortress  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul, 
and  there  died  the  following  year.  Peter,  who  had  thus 
missed  his  co-operation,  was  chiefly  assisted  in  matters 
of  national  economy  by  Vassili  Nikititch  Tatichtchev. 

Tatichtchev  was  a  Dielatiel  (literally,  a  maker)^  a  com- 
pletely new  type,  with  all  the  constitutional  qualities  and 
faults  of  his  kind,  which  have  endured  down  to  the  present 
day.  An  engineer,  an  administrator,  a  geographer  and 
historian,  whose  lengthy  sojourns  in  foreign  countries 
(more  especially  in  Germany)  had  brought  him  into 
close  touch  with  the  intellectual  progress  of  the  West, 
Vassili  Nikititch  Tatichtchev  (1685-1750)  was  rich  in 
gifts  and  resources.  But  he  stands  convicted,  during 
his  mission  in  the  province  of  Orenburg,  of  an  in- 
curable taste  for  peculation,  and  the  only  defence  he 
can  make  is  to  quote  this  maxim,  ^Mf  a  man  judges 
justly,  it  is  only  fair  he  should  be  paid."  After  being 
sent  in  semi-disgrace  to  Stockholm,  and  having  exposed 


TATICHTCHEV  57 

himself  to  fresh  judicial  proceedings  at  Astrakan,  whither 
he  was  despatched  as  governor  by  Elizabeth,  Tatichtchev 
died  just  as  he  had  snatched  an  acquittal  from  the  too 
facile  good-nature  of  his  sovereign.  Russians  know  how 
to  die.  This  national  virtue  has  been  splendidly  ex- 
tolled and  illustrated  by  Tolstoi  and  Garchine.  The 
believer  performs  the  final  duties  of  his  faith  as  calmly 
and  serenely  as  if  he  were  going  to  a  baptism  or  a  mar- 
riage. Even  amongst  atheists,  we  seldom  see  a  case  in 
which  the  terrors  of  death  drive  a  man  to  deny  his  con- 
victions. Tatichtchev,  perceiving  that  his  end  drew 
near,  set  his  domestic  affairs  in  order,  and  then,  mount- 
ing his  horse,  betook  himself  to  the  neighbouring  ceme- 
tery to  choose  his  grave  and  warn  the  priest.  The  next 
day  he  passed  away.  His  death  had  been  better  ordered 
than  his  life. 

In  his  works,  both  literary  and  scientific,  we  notice  a 
lack  of  rule  and  proportion  which  was  still  common  among 
the  writers  and  savants  of  his  country.  At  one  moment 
he  conceived  a  plan  for  a  National  Geography,  so  huge 
that  his  spirit  recoiled  in  alarm  from  the  idea  of  carrying 
it  into  execution.  At  another  he  undertook  to  produce 
a  lexicon  of  history,  geography,  and  politics.  He  car- 
ried it  no  further  than  the  letter  L.  As  a  historian  he 
was  more  especially  a  collector  of  materials,  and  his 
work  is  still  valuable,  because  it  contains  fragments  of 
chronicles,  the  originals  of  which  have  entirely  disap- 
peared. 

His  views  are  those  of  a  self-taught  man,  who  has 
done  no  preparatory  work,  and  has  had  to  fight  his  own 
way.  But  he  was  the  first  man  in  Russia  to  realise  the 
necessity  of  including,  in  any  history,  the  whole  life  of 
the  country  concerned,   its  habits,   customs,  and  tradi- 


58  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

tions.     This  fact  places  a  great  gulf  between  Tatichtchev 
and  his  immediate  forerunners,  the  ancient  chroniclers. 

His  contemporaries  considered  him  a  free-thinker, 
and  Peter  has  the  credit  of  having  combated  certain 
slips  of  judgment  noticed  in  his  collaborator  by  argu- 
ments of  his  own,  not  unconnected  w^ith  the  employment 
of  his  legendary  doubina  (thick  stick).  Yet  Tatichtchev's 
scepticism  does  not  appear  to  have  gone  beyond  that  of 
which  Prokopovitch  himself  showed  himself  capable  in 
the  discussion  of  the  authenticity  of  a  certain  icouy  attri- 
buted to  the  brush  of  St.  Methodius.  He  clung  to  his 
Western  Rationalism,  and  combined  with  it  a  constant 
effort  to  reconcile  faith  with  reason.  Walch's  Dictionary 
of  Philosophy,  then  popular  in  Germany,  was  the  expres- 
sion, and  marked  the  limit,  of  his  boldness. 

He  also  wrote  commentaries  on  the  ancient  Russian 
laws — the  Rousskaia  Pravda  and  the  Soudiebnik.  The 
gifts  of  his  fellow-countrymen  were  still  essentially  of 
the  polygraphic  and  encyclopedic  order.  But  the  most 
complete  expression  of  the  ideas  of  Tatichtchev  is  to  be 
found  in  his  Conversation  zvith  Friends  on  the  Utility  of 
Knowledge  and  of  Schools,  and  his  Will — further  pre- 
cepts given  by  a  father  to  a  son.  In  the  first  of  these 
works  he  indicates  the  existence  of  a  twofold  opposition 
to  the  diffusion  of  light  among  the  masses — one  that  of 
the  clergy ;  the  other  that  of  a  certain  school  of  poli- 
ticians who  look  on  ignorance  as  a  guarantee  of  docility. 
Boldly  he  strikes  at  these  twin  adversaries,  invoking,  to 
confound  the  first,  the  example  of  Christ  and  his  apos- 
tles, who  were  all  teachers,  and  demanding  of  the  last, 
"  Would  you  take  fools  and  ignorant  folk  to  manage  and 
wait  on  your  household  ?  "  Both  on  this  point  and  on 
others  his  Precepts,  which  are  contemporary  with  those 


UTILITARIAN   LITERATURE  59 

of  Possochkov  (1719  and  1725),  speak  out  boldly.  Tati- 
chtchev,  though  he  always  regards  religion  as  the  neces- 
sary foundation  for  education,  whether  public  or  private, 
turns  his  back  resolutely  on  the  Domostroi.  Domes- 
tic authority,  as  represented  by  the  whip — even  when 
used  gently  and  in  private — is  utterly  repugnant  to  him. 
He  divides  life  into  three  parts — military  service,  civil 
service,  and  finally  retirement  to  the  country,  to  be 
employed  in  caring  for  w^hatever  property  a  man  may 
possess.  This  leads  him  to  formulate  certain  teachings, 
which  show  his  agreement  with  Possochkov's  view  of 
the  necessary  connection  between  the  economic  progress 
of  a  country  and  the  raising  of  its  intellectual  level. 

My  readers  will  observe  the  utilitarian  character  of 
all  this  literature.  This  is  the  special  mark  of  the 
period  in  which  art  has  not,  as  yet,  its  appointed  place. 
One  event  occurs,  however,  and  one  current  is  formed, 
which,  from  the  literary  and  artistic  point  of  view,  would 
appear  to  indicate  that  the  process  of  evolution  was 
approaching  its  natural  close.  I  referred  to  this  event 
when  I  mentioned  a  contemporary  theatrical  migration. 

From  the  German  Faubourg  the  actors  found  their 
way  into  the  court.  From  the  Kreml  they  passed  on  to 
the  public  square.  After  1702,  the  new  German  troupe, 
led  by  Johann  Kunscht  of  Dantzig,  gave  performances 
in  the  Red  Square  at  Moscow,  and  was  obliged  to  use 
the  Russian  language.  The  repertory  consisted,  for  the 
most  part,  of  translations,  but  Peter  commanded  that 
allusions  to  contemporary  events,  in  a  sense  favour- 
able to  his  policy,  should  be  interpolated.  Vladhnir^  a 
tragi-comedy  by  Prokopovitch,  which  was  performed  at 
Kiev  in  1702  and  at  Moscow  in  1705,  teems  with  such 
allusions. 


Co  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Had  Prokopovitch  any  knowledge  of  Shakespeare  ? 
Possibly,  through  Philipps'  Thcatrum  Poetarum  (1675). 
•n  the  religious  drama,  the  comic  element  only  appears 
as  an  accessory,  in  the  form  of  burlesque  interludes,  but 
.L  is  an  integral  part  of  the  work  of  the  bishop-playwright, 
rhe  interest  of  this  piece  is  concentrated  on  the  struggle 
in  Vladimir's  soul  between  the  habits  and  beliefs  of 
paganism  and  the  teachings  of  the  new  faith,  and  con- 
stitutes a  bona-fide  attempt  at  psychological  drama. 

The  current  to  which  I  have  adverted  is  the  appear- 
ance, on  the  heels  of  the  translators  employed  by  Peter, 
of  the  Imitators.  It,  too,  had  an  earlier  source.  Of  this 
I  have  indicated  some  symptoms  in  the  time  of  Ivan  the 
Terrible.  All  the  Reformer  did  was  to  hurry  it  forward 
and  increase  it.  His  personal  genius  was,  as  is  well 
known,  imitative  to  the  highest  degree,  and  literature 
was  fain  to  follow  his  lead. 

This  period  was  one  of  Indian  file,  and  the  honour  of 
leading  the  way  fell  to  a  foreigner.  The  poetic  work 
of  the  Moldavian  prince,  Kantemir,  whose  father  allied 
himself  with  Peter  in  1709,  and  thereby  lost  his  prin- 
cipality, is  of  a  date  posterior  to  that  of  the  great  Tsar's 
reign.  In  his  days,  men  fought  and  were  beaten  top  often 
to  leave  much  time  for  sacrificing  to  Apollo.  The  man 
of  letters  had  no  chance  of  asserting  himself  among 
the  bevy  of  soldiers  and  craftsmen  whom  the  mighty 
fighter  carried  in  his  train.  Antiochus  Dmitri£vitch 
Kant£mik,  who  was  born  at  Constantinople  in  1708, 
and  died  in  Paris,  after  a  sojourn  of  some  years  in  Lon- 
don, in  1744,  was  himself  no  more  than  a  dilettante.  By 
profession  he  was  a  diplomatist.  His  first  literary  at- 
tempt was  a  satire.  Through  all  the  vicissitudes  of  future 
times,  this  form  of  expression  was  to  predominate  in  the 


KANTEMIR  6i 

literature  of  his  adopted  country,  and  to  afford,  in  every 
period,  proofs  of  superior  originality  and  more  direct 
inspiration.  In  an  engraving  inspired  by  the  death  of 
Peter  the  Great,  and  representing  a  cat  borne  to  the 
tomb  by  mice,  the  celebrated  iconographist  Rovinski 
has  discovered  a  number  of  features  which  bear  no  re- 
semblance to  the  Western  models.  Pictorial  details  and 
letterpress  are  alike  of  local  growth,  from  the  mouse  of 
Riazan,  Siva  (^'  grey  one  "),  which,  draped  in  a  sarapJiane, 
weeps  as  it  skips  v  prissiadkou  (bending  its  knees),  and 
seems  to  symbolise  the  hypocrisy  of  the  priesthood,  to 
the  reminiscences,  so  evident  in  the  funeral  cortege,  of 
the  burlesque  masquerades  which  were  one  of  the  pecu- 
liarities of  the  famous  reign. 

Kantemir's  first  satire,  composed  in  1729,  attacked 
the  opponents  of  education,  and  more  particularly  the 
personal  enemies  of  Prokopovitch,  whose  pupil  the 
author  was.  The  young  man  found  himself  forthwith 
enrolled  under  the  banner  of  progress,  and  torn  between 
politics  and  literature.  This  did  not  hinder  him,  two 
years  later,  from  joining  Tatichtchev  in  the  composition 
of  the  famous  address  in  which  the  Russian  nobles,  after 
having  raised  the  shadow  of  an  agitation  in  favour  of 
constitutional  reform,  besought  the  Empress  Anne  to 
take  up  autocratic  power  once  more,  and  cut  off  men's 
heads  according  to  her  own  goodwill  and  pleasure.  But 
to  this  adventure  the  master  urged  his  pupil,  and  it 
ensured  Kantemir  the  prospect  of  a  brilliant  career.  At 
the  age  of  two-and-twenty  he  started  for  London,  with 
the  rank  of  Resident.  There  he  did  little  diplomatic 
work,  but  he  translated  Anacreon,  Horace,  and  Jus- 
tinian. In  1738  he  passed  on  to  Paris,  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  Montesquieu,  and  worked  at  a  Russian  version 


62  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

of  the  Lettres  Persanes,  But  soon  Maupertuis  gave  him 
ideas  for  an  essay  on  algebra,  and  Fontenelle  tempted 
him,  in  his  turn,  to  translate  his  work  on  the  "  Plurality 
of  Worlds."  He  was  fast  losing  himself  in  this  labyrinth 
when  death  laid  its  hand  upon  him. 

He  had  begun  by  moving  in  the  track  of  Boileau, 
while  he  believed  and  declared  himself  to  be  following 
Horace  and  Juvenal.  The-philosophic  ideal  of  Horace, 
vaguely  floating  betwixt  the  doctrine  of  the  Stoics  and 
that  of  the  Epicureans,  gave  birth  to  his  sixth  and  eighth 
satires.  To  be  content  with  little,  to  live  apart,  ''  with  the 
Greek  and  Latin  poets  for  company,"  to  reflect  on  events 
and  their  causes,  and  steer  a  wise  middle  course  in  all 
matters — this  was  his  fancy.  The  Empress  Elizabeth's 
method  of  government  made  it  somewhat  of  a  necessity. 
The  poet  had  no  fortune  of  his  own,  and  his  salary  was 
most  irregularly  paid. 

His  poetry  is  chiefly  valuable  from  the  historical  point 
of  view.  I  discern  a  certain  amount  of  imagination  in  it, 
but  no  charm  of  any  kind.  Occasionally  his  language  is 
strong,  but  for  the  most  part  it  is  trivial  even  to  the  point 
of  vulgarity.  Further — and  this  may  be  forgiven  in  a 
foreigner — he  has  not  a  shadow  of  originality,  not  a  touch 
of  personal  sentiment  nor  of  national  feeling.  Though 
superior  to  most  of  his  Russian  contemporaries  in  his 
power  of  understanding  and  appreciating  the  Western 
world,  and  capable  of  grasping  and  appreciating  the 
real  meaning  of  the  civilisations  he  studied,  Kant^mir 
was  unable  to  add  anything  of  his  own  to  them. 
The  form  of  verse  he  employs,  a  syllabic  metre  of 
twelve  feet,  is  clumsy  and  stiff.  But  let  us  not  forget 
that  at  that  moment  Trediakovski  was  engaged  on  the 
first  study  ever  made  of  the  elementary  principles  of 


KANTEMIR  63 

Russian  versification,  and  had  just  realised  the  necessity 
of  replacing  the  syllabic  by  the  tonic  line.  And  even 
he  could  not  succeed  in  adding  example  to  precept. 
Kantemir  attempted  it,  with  some  measure  of  success,  in 
his  fifth  satire,  and  thereafter,  in  his  Letter  to  a  Friend  on 
the  Composition  of  Russian  Poetry^  he  took  his  turn  at 
theory  instead  of  practice,  and  was  much  less  suc- 
cessful. 

He  made  attempts  on  other  lines,  philosophic  odes, 
odes  on  special  subjects,  fables,  epigrams.  He  even 
began  a  Petreidy  which,  mercifully  perhaps  for  the 
Reformer's  reputation,  was  never  finished.  He  always 
came  back  to  his  satires,  with  the  sensation,  so  he 
declared,  "  of  swimming  in  familiar  waters,  never  making 
his  readers  yaw^n  .  .  .  flying  like  a  general  to  victory ! " 
His  chief  victory  was  that  he  came  in  first  in  the  race, 
and  had  no  competitors.  The  soil  of  Russia,  though 
cleared  for  cultivation  by  the  efforts  of  Peter  the  Great, 
must  needs  undergo  two  further  processes  before  the 
art  of  poetry  could  spread  and  blossom  freely  on  its 
bosom.  I  refer  to  the  patient  preparation  involved  in  the 
labours  of  Trediakovski,  and  of  that  other  gifted  toiler  in 
the  field  of  intellect,  Lomonossov.  It  was  by  no  means 
an  ungrateful  soil.  I  have  before  me,  as  I  write,  some 
lines  written  by  an  unknown  poet,  in  1724,  on  the  subject 
of  the  tragic  fate  of  Mons,  Catherine  the  First's  beheaded 
lover.  In  them  I  find,  long  before  Rousseau's  time,  real 
feeling,  lyric  and  sentimental,  grown  up,  like  a  wild 
flower,  how  we  cannot  tell, — a  garden  spot  in  this  land 
of  brutal  realism.  But  this  would  appear  to  be  a  very 
isolated  instance. 

Russia,  as  she  drew  closer  to  the  Western  countries, 
was  necessarily  forced  to  obey  the  Western  laws  of  lite- 


64  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

rary  development,  and  follow  her  predecessors  through 
the  same  regular  course  and  series  of  culture.  The 
establishment  of  a  court  and  a  court  aristocracy  was 
destined,  just  at  this  precise  period,  to  favour  the  birth 
of  a  form  of  literature  which,  in  France,  reached  its 
highest  point  during  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV. — the 
Classic. 


CHAPTER    III 

THE   FORGING   OF    THE   LANGUAGE 

One  winter  evening  in  1732,  in  a  room  in  the  wooden 
palace  where  the  Empress  Anne  held  her  court,  a  man 
knelt  beside  the  fireplace,  close  to  which  the  sovereign's 
armchair  had  been  drawn  on  account  of  the  bitter  cold. 
He  was  reading  aloud  a  set  of  verses,  half-panegyric, 
half-madrigal.  When  his  voice  ceased,  her  Majesty  beck- 
oned him  towards  hen  He  obeyed  without  changing 
his  posture,  dragging  himself  along  on  his  knees.  The 
Empress  gave  him  a  friendly  tap  on  the  cheek,  and  he 
retired  backwards,  followed  by  glances  half-scornful, 
half-jealous,  from  the  assembled  company.  Once  in  his 
own  chamber,  he  noted  the  event  in  his  journal.  It 
w^as  destined  to  become  the  depository  of  less  pleasant 
memories.  A  few  years  later,  he  attended  at  court  to 
take  orders  for  a  poem  to  celebrate  some  special  occa- 
sion. A  Minister  whose  anger  he  had  roused  had  his  face 
slapped  in  far  rougher  fashion,  and  his  body  most  merci- 
lessly beaten.  Half-dead  with  pain  and  fright,  he  was 
left  to  spend  his  night  in  prison,  and  there  compose  the 
lines  commanded  by  his  employer.  Then  the  following 
day,  w^ilh  his  face  swelled  out  of  knowledge  and  his  back 
beaten  raw,  he  was  forced  to  put  on  some  burlesque 
disguise,  take  part  in  a  court  display,  and  there  recite  his 
poem.  He  died  poor  and  forgotten,  and  was  only  re- 
membered by  the  next  generation  as  the  author  of  the 


66  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

unlucky  Telemachida^  the  lines  of  which  Catherine  II. 
caused  the  habitual  members  of  her  circle  at  the  Hermi- 
tage to  recite  as  a  task. 

This  man  was  Vassili  Kirillovitch  Tr£diakovski 
(1703-1769).  Compare  the  biographical  details  given 
above  with  what  we  know  of  the  behaviour  of  Swift,  who 
wrung  an  apology  from  Harley  and  then  "restored  him 
to  his  favour,"  and  refused  the  advances  of  the  Duke  of 
Buckingham,  and  at  once  we  realise  the  gulf  between 
these  two  provinces  of  the  literary  world  !  The  man  thus 
handled  by  his  contemporaries  and  their  descendants 
deserved  a  better  fate.  Born  at  Astrakan,  on  the  con- 
fines of  Asia,  in  1703,  we  find  him,  in  1728,  plodding 
along  the  road  from  the  Hague  to  Paris,  wild  with  the 
longing  to  see  and  learn,  living  we  know  not  how,  begging 
for  knowledge,  rather  than  for  bread.  He  was  the  son  of 
a  pope,  had  been  taught  at  Astrakhan  by  the  Capuchin 
missionaries,  and  had  afterwards  studied  at  the  Slavo- 
Graeco- Latin  Academy  at  Moscow,  where  he  wrote  two 
plays,  a  Jason  and  a  TituSy  w^hich  were  performed  by 
the  pupils  of  the  establishment,  and  an  elegy  on  the 
death  of  Peter  the  Great.  A  disagreement  with  his 
superiors — he  was  always  quarrelsome — pecuniary  diffi- 
culties, and  the  irresistible  charm  of  the  nev/  outlook 
opened  to  him  by  the  Reform,  combined  to  drive  him 
abroad.  By  the  favour  of  the  Russian  Minister  in  Paris, 
Kourakine,  he  attended  the  lectures  delivered  at  the 
University  by  Rollin,  and  won  his  diploma.  This  enabled 
him  to  snap  his  fingers  at  the  Muscovite  Academy.  He 
returned  to  Russia,  and  found  employment  of  the  kind 
indicated  in  the  opening  lines  of  this  chapter.  It  was  not 
till  1733  that  he  was  appointed  secretary  of  the  St.  Peters- 
burg  Academy,    and   this    dignity  did   not   screen   him 


TREDIAKOVSKI  67 

from  the  ministerial  bludgeon,  for  the  terrible  experience 
I  have  related  above  took  place  in  1740.  In  1735  a 
^^  Society  of  the  Friends  of  the  Russian  Language  "  was 
formed  in  connection  with  the  St.  Petersburg  Academy, 
and  Trediakovski  inaugurated  its  proceedings  by  an 
address  on  *'  The  Purity  of  the  Russian  Tongue."  He  was  ^ 
the  first  to  point  out  to  his  comrades  the  necessity  for  a  ( 
good  grammar  and  an  authoritative  system  of  rhetoric 
and  poetry.  Ten  years  later,  under  Elizabeth,  we  find  him 
higher  up  the  ladder,  Professor  of  Latin  and  of  Russian 
Elocution  at  the  Academy  and  University  ;  but  nothing 
but  his  sovereign's  imperative  command  obtained  his 
nomination  to  this  post,  contrary  to  the  will  of  the  Com- 
mittee of  the  Academy,  entirely  composed  of  foreigners, 
who  'Mid  not  choose  to  have  a  Russian  in  their  com- 
pany." For  eighteen  years  Trediakovski  gave  the  greater 
part  of  his  time  and  all  his  best  efforts  to  his  professional 
duties.  He  trained  Popov  and  Barsov,  the  first  Russian 
professors  of  the  University  of  Moscow,  and,  like  Lomo- 
nossov,  did  his  utmost  to  serve  the  interests  of  science 
and  of  the  national  education. 

He  wrote  as  well,  unluckily  !  He  translated  Boileau's 
Art  PoiHiquCy  Telemaque^  and  some  of  uEsop's  fables  into 
verse,  and  did  Horace's  De  Arte  Poetica  and  Tallemant's 
Voyage  a  I  lie  d' Amour  into  prose.  He  produced  an 
ode  on  the  taking  of  Danzig,  and  various  other  poems 
on  special  occasions,  besides  a  considerable  number  of 
essays  on  the  art  of  poetry,  on  versification,  the  Russian 
tongue,  and  various  historical  subjects. 

Both  verse  and  prose  have  been  the  theme  of  his 
fellow-countrymen's  spiteful  wit  down  to  the  time  of 
Pouchkine,  who  was  the  first  to  understand  and  plainly 
say,  that  underneath  the  poet,  at  w^hom  ali  men  scoffed, 


68  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

there  lurked  a  philologist  and  grammarian  of  the  fore- 
most rank.  According  to  the  author  of  Eugene  Onieguiney 
Trediakovski's  views  on  versification  are  more  profound 
and  more  correct  than  those  of  Lomonossov  himself. 
And  even  as  a  poet,  the  author  of  the  TeleviaeJiida  is 
superior  to  Soumarokov  and  Kheraskov,  the  two  literary 
stars  of  the  succeeding  period. 

Nevertheless,  for  over  fifty  years  the  hexameters  of 
the  Telemachida  were  the  bugbear  of  several  generations 
of  poets,  and  in  1790,  Gnieditch,  the  Russian  translator 
of  the  Iliad,  w^as  extolled  for  having  dared  to  ''  snatch 
the  verse  of  Homer  and  Virgil  from  the  stake  of  infamy 
to  which  Trediakovski  had  nailed  it." 

Trediakovski  was  essentially  a  theorist,  gifted  with  a 
quite  remarkable  intuitive  power.  His  public  advocacy 
of  the  use  of  the  tonic  accent  {oudarenie)  in  poetic  metre 
is  sufficient  proof  of  my  assertion.  He  lacked  inspira- 
tion and  aesthetic  feeling  ;  but  what  an  ungrateful  task 
was  his,  when  we  recollect  that  he  was  driven  to  explain 
to  his  readers  that  when  he  spoke  of  the  God  of  Love 
he  did  not  intend  any  disrespect  to  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity  !  His  literary  faith  was  that  of  Boileau.  Poetry, 
according  to  him,  began  with  the  Greeks,  passed  through 
a  brilliant  period  with  the  Romans,  and  .  .  .  ''  at  last 
Malherbe  appeared."  He  believed  this.  While  he  wove 
laborious  lines  in  the  tongue  of  Malherbe,  he  felt  himself 
a  proud  participator  in  the  glories  of  a  modern  Athens. 
And  had  he  desired  to  use  his  own  language,  what  diffi- 
culties still  lay  in  his  path  ! 

Which  language  was  he  to  employ,  in  the  first  place  ? 
There  were  three  in  current  use — the  old  Slavonic  tongue 
of  the  Church,  the  popular  speech,  which  differed  from 
it  considerably,  and  the  official  language,  one  of  Peter 


LOMONOSSOV  6g 

the  Great's  creations,  originally  adopted  at  his  Foreign 
Office,  stuffed  full,  by  the  scribes  employed  there,  with 
German,  Dutch,  and  French  words,  and  forced  by  supe- 
rior orders  on  the  translators  of  foreign  books.  It  was 
a  second  Tower  of  Babel,  and  within  it  Trediakovski 
and  his  partners  struggled  desperately,  till  Lomonossov 
appeared  upon  the  scene. 

The  personal  character  of  the  unhappy  Popovitch 
("  son  of  a  priest ")  also  affected  both  his  life  and  his  re- 
putation. He  felt  outrage  cruelly,  and  was  incapable 
of  raising  himself  above  it  by  his  consciousness  of  real 
dignity  and  worth.  Thus  he  sought  compensation  of  a 
less  legitimate  nature,  was  servile  to  his  superiors,  and 
unbearably  arrogant  in  his  deahngs  with  others.  The 
advent  of  Lomonossov  and  the  successes  of  Soumarokov 
w^ere  more  bitter  to  him  than  the  cudgellings  of  his  earlier 
days.  He  had  grown  into  the  habit,  amidst  his  many 
insults,  of  proclaiming  himself  the  foremost  of  living 
poets.  He  lost  his  head  now,  quarrelled  with'  his 
rivals,  insulted,  and  finally  denounced  them.  In  1759, 
thoroughly  beaten,  he  retired  from  the  Academy,  and 
led  the  life  of  a  recluse,  almost  of  an  outcast,  until 
1769. 

The  career  and  work  of  Lomonossov  are,  in  a  sense, 
the  continuation  of  the  career  and  the  revolutionary 
work  of  Peter  the  Great.  But  to  render  this  continua- 
tion possible,  a  second  revolution  was  necessary.  The 
inheritance  left  by  the  Reformer  was  built  up  by  foreign 
hands,  out  of  materials  largely  foreign  in  their  origin. 
After  his  death,  under  a  prolonged  gynocracy,  with  one 
Empress  who  came  from  Livonia  or  Poland,  another 
from  Germany,  these  foreign  auxiliaries  broke  their  ranks, 
pushed  to  the  front,  made  themselves  the  masters.     We 


70  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

have  seen  how  they  would  have  shut  the  door  in  Tre- 
diakovski's  face.  It  was  not  until  1741  that  the  native 
element  rose  in  revolt  and  recovered  the  upper  hand, 
driving  out  the  Brunswick  family  and  placing  Eliza- 
beth, Peter's  own  daughter,  in  power.  In  1746,  a  Little- 
Russian  named  Razoumovski  was  appointed  president 
of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  and  a  year  later,  a  fresh 
regulation  admitted  Russians  to  this  learned  assembly. 
Without  this  distinct  order  they  would  have  remained 
outside  !  At  the  same  time,  Latin  and  Russian  w^ere 
declared  the  only  official  languages  of  the  institution. 
Thus  its  doors  were  opened  to  the  native  Russians. 
Trediakovski  entered  with  Lomonossov ;  then  came 
Krachennikov,  a  botanist ;  Kotielnikov,  a  mathematician; 
and  others  besides,  such  as  Popov  and  Kozitski.  The 
foreign  members  shrieked  with  horror,  and  some  asked 
leave  to  quit  a  country  in  which  the  natives  actually 
claimed  to  be  at  home. 

There  was  some  slight  excuse  for  their  protests. 
Razoumovski,  who  had  been  deputed  to  preside  over 
their  labours,  was  only  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  his 
sole  merit  consisted  in  having  a  brother  who,  on  private 
occasions,  did  not  go  to  the  trouble  of  taking  off  his 
dressing-gown  to  dine  with  the  Empress.  His  place 
was  filled — and  the  change  was  for  the  better — during 
the  second  half  of  her  reign,  by  I.  I.  Chouvalov,  whose 
behaviour  may  indeed  have  been  as  informal,  but  who 
did  take  a  serious  interest  in  intellectual  matters.  He 
was  known  as  the  *'  Russian  Maecenas."  Brought  up 
in  French  schools,  a  great  gentleman  and  a  courtier, 
Chouvalov  felt  the  need  of  some  one  to  plan  under- 
takings which  were  beyond  the  natural  scope  of  his  own 
powers  and  occupations,  and  help  him  to  carry  them 


LOMONOSSOV  71 

through.  He  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  seek  such  a 
man  abroad.  The  being  for  whose  appearance  Peter 
had  longed,  when  he  expressed  his  hope  that  the  mer- 
cenaries, scientific  and  hterary,  whom  he  had  gathered 
from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth,  might  be  replaced, 
at  some  not  too  far  distant  time,  by  sons  of  the  Russian 
soil,  was  under  his  hand.  The  whole  process  of  evolu- 
tion which  produced  our  modern  Russia  —  the  work 
of  several  centuries  previous  to  the  first  reforms,  the 
gradual  awakening  of  the  mighty  sleeper  to  a  new 
existence,  the  first  contact  with  the  Western  world,  the 
gropings  after  the  road  that  led  towards  the  future — all 
these  things  are  personified  in  the  advent  and  career  of 
this  astounding  inoujik, 

A  fisherman's  family,  a  cabin  close  to  the  White  Sea, 
far  away  in  the  distant  north-east,  beyond  Archangel ; 
a  corner  of  the  earth  wrapped  in  the  twofold  darkness 
of  the  Northern  winter  and  of  a  rude  and  coarse  exist- 
ence ;  a  lad  helping  his  father  to  cast  his  nets.  There 
you  have  the  home,  the  country,  the  childhood  of 
Michael  VASSiLifiviTCH  Lomonossov(i7ii-i765).  The 
region  was  not  utterly  dark  and  barbarous.  Occasional 
rays  of  light  had  fallen  upon  it  from  time  to  time. 
Peter  had  passed  through  it  on  his  way  to  serve  his 
first  sea-apprenticeship  in  the  inhospitable  haven  where 
Chancellor  cast  his  anchor.  Already,  at  a  yet  earlier  date, 
British  sailors  had  carried  a  breath  of  European  civilisa- 
tion to  the  spot.  The  inclement  sky,  the  thankless  soil, 
the  boisterous  sea,  had  bred  a  strong  and  hardy  race 
of  workers,  among  whom  remoteness  and  isolation  in 
the  depths  of  an  historic  particularism  had  perpetuated 
the   traditions  of    a  freedom  which    had    long   escaped 

the  miseries  of  serfdom.     The  fisherman's  son  found  a 
6 


72  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

peasant,  Ivan  Choubine,  who  knew  enough  to  teach  the 
boy  to  act  as  reader  in  the  church.  From  these  humble 
beginnings  the  child  imbibed,  and  never  lost,  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  the  Slavo-ecclesiastic  language,  and  a  deep 
sense  of  religion.  In  the  house  of  another  peasant  he 
found  Smotrytski's  Slav  grammar,  Magnitski's  arithmetic, 
Simeon  Polotski's  Psalter  in  rhyme,  and  beyond  the 
foggy  horizon  that  hemmed  his  humble  existence,  strange 
lights,  half  guessed  at,  beckoned  him  more  and  more 
imperiously. 

At  seventeen  Lomonossov  could  bear  it  no  longer, 
persuaded  Choubine  to  give  him  a  warm  kaftan  and  three 
roubles,  slipped  out  of  his  father's  house,  and  started 
for  Moscow — for  the  light !  Conceive  his  journey,  and 
his  arrival  in  the  great  town,  where  he  did  not  know  a 
soul !  It  was  in  January  1731,  in  the  bitter  cold.  He 
spent  his  first  night  in  the  fish-market,  where  he  found 
shelter  in  an  empty  sledge.  We  know  not  what  provi- 
dence carried  him  into  the  Academy  school.  The  story 
goes,  that  to  rouse  interest,  he  declared  himself  the  son 
of  a  priest.  The  Academy  supported  its  scholars,  giving 
each  of  them  an  altine  a  day  (a  coin  worth  three  kopeks 
=  three-halfpence).  For  three  years  Lomonossov  lived  on 
his  pay.  Half  a  kopek  for  bread,  half  a  kopek  for  kwasSy 
the  rest  he  spent  on  his  clothes,  on  paper,  ink,  and  books. 
He  bought  books.  He  prospered.  By  the  end  of  the 
third  year  he  looked  like  a  Hercules,  and  he  had  learnt 
Latin.  He  was  sent  to  Kiev  to  complete  his  education 
and  study  philosophy  and  natural  science.  Perhaps  the 
authorities  were  glad  to  get  rid  of  him.  He  was  hard- 
working, but  turbulent.  He  fell  out  with  the  teaching 
authorities  at  Kiev,  came  back  to  Moscow,  and  was 
thinking   of    taking   orders,    not   knowing   how   else   to 


LOMONOSSOV  73 

provide  for  himself,  when  a  sudden  message  from  St. 
Petersburg  commanded  that  twelve  of  the  best  Academy 
students  should  be  sent  thither.  The  Gymnasium  be- 
longing to  the  Academy  of  the  new  capital  was  starved 
for  want  of  pupils.  Lomonossov  formed  one  of  the 
batch,  and  a  few  months  later  he  was  again  chosen  to 
be  sent  across  the  frontier,  and  cast  into  the  lap  of  the 
German  schools.  He  went  to  Marburg,  then  to  Freiburg 
in  Saxony,  studied  physics,  philosophy,  and  logic,  but 
contracted,  meanwhile,  those  habits  of  dissipation  and 
debauchery  which  were  to  ruin  his  robust  constitution 
and  hasten  his  death. 

At  the  same  time,  he  felt  the  poetic  faculty  stir  within 
him.  The  quite  phenomenal  scope  and  grasp  of  a  mind 
open  to  every  impression  made  him  the  most  powerful  and 
perfect  type  of  those  Russian  intellects  the  capacity  and 
facility  of  which  so  astound  us,  even  at  the  present  day. 
One  is  almost  tempted  to  believe  that  the  long  period  of 
inaction  imposed  upon  the  race  has  caused  it,  so  to  speak, 
to  accumulate  and  lay  up  a  store  of  potential  activity 
in  connection  with  these  faculties,  which,  where  earlier 
developed,  seem,  blunted  by  the  wear  and  tear  of  cen- 
turies. While  Lomonossov  listened  to  the  teaching  of 
Wolff  and  Henkel  he  wove  rhymes. 

In  1740  he  sent  to  St.  Petersburg  an  ode,  after  the 
style  of  Glinther,  on  the  subject  of  the  taking  of  Chocim 
by  the  Russians.  It  made  a  great  stir.  A  dissertation 
on  Russian  versification  accompanied  the  poem,  elicited 
a  reply  from  Trediakovski,  and  was  laid  before  the  Aca- 
demic Areopagus.  This  assembly,  consisting  of  Germans 
and  Frenchmen,  saw  nothing  in  it.  But  in  the  outer 
world  every  one  blamed  Trediakovski,  and  acclaimed 
the  advent  of  a  great  poet.     Lomonossov  won  fame  in 


74  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Russia,  but  in  Germany  he  had  debts,  and  a  wife  who 
did  not  help  him  to  economise.  He  had  married  his 
landlord's  daughter.  He  narrowly  escaped  going  to  jail, 
wandered  for  a  while  from  one  region  to  another,  and 
finally,  near  Dlisseldorf,  fell  in  with  a  Prussian  recruiting 
party,  who  made  him  drunk  and  carried  him  off  to  the 
fortress  of  Wesel.  His  height  and  his  broad  shoulders 
made  him  a  welcome  prize.  He  escaped,  and  contrived 
to  get  back  to  St.  Petersburg,  leaving  his  wife  and  child 
behind  him  in  Germany.  His  father-in-law  was  a  tailor, 
and  able  to  provide  for  them.  At  the  end  of  two  years, 
having  obtained  the  post  of  Assistant-Professor  of  Phy- 
sical Science,  he  was  able  to  send  for  his  family,  which 
his  chosen  spouse,  Elizabeth-Christine  Zilch,  like  the 
good  German  she  was,  forthwith  increased.  He  taught 
physics  and  chemistry  as  well,  besides  natural  history, 
geography,  versification,  and  the  laws  of  style.  In  1745, 
on  the  departure  of  Gmelin,  a  German,  he  succeeded  to 
the  chair  of  Chemistry.  In  1757,  he  entered  the  Chancery 
of  the  Academy,  and  instantly  challenged  the  Germans 
who  still  remained,  and  claimed  to  continue  to  rule  it. 
He  invented  all  sorts  of  reforms  and  contrivances,  cal- 
culated to  deprive  them  of  the  management  of  the 
institution. 

The  death  of  Elizabeth,  which  ruined  Chouvalov's 
credit,  and  restored,  to  a  certain  degree,  the  power  of  the 
foreign  party,  checked  all  these  plans  and  ambitions. 
Lomonossov's  boldness  in  the  struggle  had  only  been 
equalled  by  his  activity,  and  the  support  he  had  received 
from  Chouvalov  had  never  been  of  a  nature  which  in- 
volved any  compromise  with  his  ow^n  dignity.  Swift 
himself  might  have  been  responsible  for  the  terms  in 
which  he  repulsed  an  attempt  made  by  his  ^'  Maecenas  " 


LOMONOSSOV  75 

to  reconcile  him  with  Soumarokov  :  *^  I  will  not  look 
like  a  dourak  (fool),  not  only  before  the  great  men  of 
the  earth,  but  before  God  himself  !  "  But  he  had  been 
more  quarrelsome,  and,  above  all,  more  violent,  than 
Trediakovski  himself,  breaking  out  perpetually  into 
insults  and  boorish  sallies  which  betrayed  the  native 
coarseness  of  the  man.  He  was  once  temporarily  ex- 
cluded from  the  Academy,  and  deprived  of  part  of  his 
salary,  for  having  abused  his  German  colleagues  and  told 
them  they  were  thieves.  The  salary  amounted  to  fifteen 
roubles  (;^3)  a  month,  and  his  injured  colleagues,  who 
were  less  poorly  paid,  w^ould  have  preferred  his  receiving 
some  corporal  punishment.  But  to  this  Elizabeth  would 
not  consent.  He  died  in  the  enjoyment  of  a  reputation 
destined  to  a  fate  the  very  opposite  of  that  of  Tredia- 
kovski. In  each  case,  Pouchkine  has  intervened,  and 
revised  the  ill-founded  judgment  passed  by  a  public 
opinion  insufficiently  instructed,  even  at  the  present  day. 
In  his  lifetime,  Lomonossov  heard  himself  likened  to 
Cicero,  to  Virgil,  to  Pindar,  to  Malherbe.  To  his  imme- 
diate posterity  he  was  the  greatest  national  poet  and 
wTiter,  ^'  an  eagle,"  "  a  demi-god."  Even  Pouchkine  gives 
him  liberal  praise,  declaring  he  constituted  in  his  own 
person,  "the  first  Russian  University."  But  he  refuses 
to  acknowledge  his  poetic  gifts.  He  wall  only  allow  his 
verse  to  be  an  awkw^ard  imitation  of  German  poets, 
already  discredited  in  their  own  country,  and  will  not 
ascribe  merit  to  any  of  his  poems,  except  certain  transla- 
tions from  the  Psalms,  and  a  few  imitations  of  the  grand 
poetry  of  the  Sacred  Books,  whence  the  former  church 
reader  drew  a  happy  inspiration.  Lomonossov,  it  must 
be  said,  regarded  this  portion  of  his  own  work  with 
considerable  scorn,  whence    Pouchkine   argues  that  its 


ye  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

influence  on  the  national  literature  could  not  be  other- 
wise than  harmful. 

This,  if  I  may  dare  to  say  it,  shows  a  lack  of  instinct, 
both  psychological  and  historical.  The  best  work  is 
often  unconscious  work.  Lomonossov,  by  profession  a 
naturalist,  a  chemist,  and,  above  all,  a  teacher  of  physics, 
was  a  man  of  letters  in  his  rare  leisure  moments  only. 
And  it  is  worth  while  to  notice  the  care  taken  to  arrange 
how  those  moments  were  to  be  employed. 

On  April  20,  1748,  an  order  from  court  desires  Pro- 
fessor Lomonossov  to  translate  into  Russian  verse,  and 
within  eight- and-forty  hours,  a  German  ode  by  the 
Academician  Staehlin,  which  was  wanted  ''  for  an  illu- 
mination." On  September  29,  1750,  Trediakovski  and 
Lomonossov  receive  orders,  after  the  same  fashion,  to 
produce  a  tragedy. 

It  is  not  for  me  to  estimate,  in  this  place,  the  value  of 
the  latter  as  a  savant.  His  theories  as  to  the  propagation 
of  light  would  appear,  at  the  present  day,  to  be  false  ; 
but  others,  on  the  formation  of  coal,  have  been  accepted 
by  modern  scientists.  In  an  essay  on  electric  pheno- 
mena, published  in  1753,  he  seems  to  have  outstripped 
Franklin.  During  the  later  half  of  his  life,  he  applied 
himself  specially  to  the  study  of  the  national  language, 
literature,  and  history,  and  it  is  more  particularly  as  a 
poet  that  he  has  dwelt  in  the  memory  of  the  two  or 
three  generations  that  came  after  him.  Both  in  litera- 
ture and  in  poetry  he  is  a  harbinger,  and  the  sonorous 
and  harmonious  verse  which  is  the  pride  and  delight  of 
the  readers  of  Eugene  Onieguiney  is  simply  the  verse  of 
Lomonossov  quickened  by  a  superior  inspiration.  There 
is  the  same  full  tone,  the  same  masculine  power,  the 
same  rhythm. 


LOMONOSSOV  77 

The  didactic  spirit  general  at  that  period,  the  pre- 
dominance of  reflection  over  inspiration,  the  classical 
allusions,  Mars  and  Venus,  Neptune  and  Apollo,  offend 
our  modern  taste.  But  tastes  will  alter.  Over  and  above 
that,  the  mighty  breath  of  poetry  sweeps  through  the 
whole  of  Lomonossov's  work — odes,  epigrams,  epistles, 
satires,  and  even  the  inevitable  Petreidy  which  the  poet 
commenced,  and  in  which  he  exhausted  every  form  of 
the  poetic  art.  He  was  not  an  ai^tist^  but  he  belonged 
to  a  heroic  period  —  a  period  of  enthusiasm,  of  pas- 
sionate patriotism,  and  virile  energy.  He  succeeded  in 
giving  these  feelings  a  popular  expression,  and  from  this 
expression,  in  its  best  and  most  inspiring  forms,  the  soul 
of  Pouchkine  himself  has  drawn  breath  and  sustenance. 

To  this  mere  moujik  Pouchkine  owed  the  very  lan- 
guage of  which  he  made  so  magnificent  a  use.  The 
peasant  came  on  the  scene  just  in  time  to  blend  the 
three  heterogeneous  elements  infused  into  the  national 
literature  by  history,  the  Church,  and  the  reforms,  into 
one  harmonious  stream.  And  in  this  respect,  also,  he 
performed  his  work  unconsciously.  Theoretically,  he 
believed  himself  to  be  perpetuating  the  separation  of 
these  elements,  by  classifying  all  discourses  into  three 
orders  of  style — the  highest,  the  middle,  and  the  lower 
style,  each  with  its  own  suitable  choice  of  words  and 
expressions.  On  the  first  level  he  naturally  placed  the 
pompous  panegyrics,  carefully  formulated  in  the  lengthy 
periods  demanded  by  the  Latin  syntax,  which  he  com- 
posed for  Peter  and  Elizabeth,  and  which  were  to  draw 
down  Pouchkine's  displeasure.  But  in  his  scientific  writ- 
ings, his  notes,  his  draughts,  even  in  some  of  his  poems, 
he  forgot  his  theory,  chose  the  words  and  expressions 
best  suited  to  his  purpose,  regardless  of  the  limits  within 


7Z  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

which  he  himself  had  undertaken  to  restrict  them,  and, 
Hke  Monsieur  Jourdain,  ended,  without  being  aware  of 
it,  by  writing  a  language  drawn  from  every  source, 
which  spontaneously  mingled  and  harmonised  every 
contribution,  simple,  curt,  vigorous,  opulent — that  which 
has  become  the  language  of  Pouchkine,  and  of  every 
other  Russian. 

He  wrote  a  book  on  rhetoric  after  that  of  Gottsched, 
and,  like  him,  only  succeeded  in  formulating  the  pseudo- 
classic  principles  of  that  period.  But  on  this  work 
followed  a  Grammar  (1755),  in  which  the  author  proved 
himself  an  original  thinker,  recognising  that  languages 
are  living  organisms,  and  deducing  other  principles,  far 
in  advance  of  his  times,  from  this  conception. 

Lomonossov's  attempts  at  history  were  merely  inci- 
dental, undertaken  at  the  request  of  Elizabeth  or  of 
Chouvalov.  But  he  could  do  nothing  by  halves.  He 
soon  installed  himself  as  master  on  this  new  ground, 
and  thence  defied  Miiller,  who  would  have  described 
Rurik  as  a  Scandinavian  prince.  The  ancestors  of  the 
founder  of  the  Russian  Empire  could  not  have  been  any- 
thing but  Romans  !  Lomonossov  undertook  to  convince 
his  opponent,  and  also  to  prevent  him  from  dubbing 
the  famous  Siberian  leader,  Yermak,  a  robber,  or  choos- 
ing, as  the  subject  of  his  essays,  a  period  so  distressing 
to  the  national  feelings  as  that  of  the  "  Demetrius  "  im- 
postors. He  has  left  us  a  History  of  Russia  carried,  on 
these  principles,  up  to  the  death  of  Jaroslav,  and  a  short 
chronological  and  genealogical  manual.  He  deserves  that 
this  should  not  be  too  much  remembered,  nor  his  tra- 
gedies either.  The  great  playwright  of  those  days  was 
Soumarokov,  and  he  was  no  Corneille. 

The  vocation  of  Alexis  Petrovitch  Soumarokov 


SOUMAROKOV  79 

(17 1 8-1 777)  was  decided  by  the  theatrical  performances 
which  were  the  chief  entertainment  of  the  court  of 
Anne  I.  These  were  given,  as  a  rule,  by  Italian  actors. 
But  on  Sundays  an  addition  was  made  in  the  shape  of 
Russian  *'  interludes/'  specially  written  for  the  occasion, 
and  played  by  the  pupils  of  the  Cadet  Corps.  This,  until 
the  later  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  was  the  only 
school  in  which  the  elements  of  a  general  education  were 
to  be  found.  There  Soumarokov,  with  many  of  his  com- 
rades, pursued  the  study  of  the  French  classics  ;  later 
on  he  joined  the  army,  and  served  until  1747,  when  a 
tragedy  of  his  composition,  which  was  acted  by  other 
cadets,  won  him  the  reputation  of  a  great  writer. 

Elizabeth's  courtiers  and  officials  were  forced,  on 
pain  of  punishment,  to  attend  these  theatrical  perfor- 
mances. Yet,  until  1756,  there  was  no  stage  in  the 
capital  specially  affected  to  the  Russian  drama.  The 
first  theatre  of  this  nature  was  opened  in  the  provincial 
city  of  Jaroslav.  There  a  man  named  Volkov,  the  son 
of  a  shopkeeper,  engaged  a  troupe  of  actors,  and  built  a 
room  large  enough  to  hold  a  thousand  spectators.  He  was 
summoned  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  kept  there.  Soumaro- 
kov, who  had  meanwhile  produced  three  more  tragedies, 
one  of  them  a  Hamlet^  was  appointed  manager  of  the 
Russian  theatre  thus  tardily  opened.  In  reality  the 
management  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Imperial  Procura- 
tor. Soumarokov  fell  out  with  him,  migrated,  in  1760,  to 
Moscow,  quarrelled  with  the  governor  there  (P.  S.  Salty- 
kov), and  deafened  Catherine  II.,  who  had  succeeded 
Elizabeth,  with  his  complaints.  She  sent  him  word,  at 
last,  that  she  would  open  no  more  of  his  letters,  for  that  she 
"would  rather  see  the  effect  of  passion  in  his  plays  than 
in  his  correspondence."     He  died  poor  and  forsaken. 


8o  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

In  spite  of  their  Slav  or  Varegian  nameS;  there  is  even 
less  connection  between  his  heroes  and  the  ancient  Rus- 
sian world,  than  between  those  of  Racine  and  Voltaire 
and  the  old  Greeks  and  Romans.  They  are  Frenchmen 
in  essence,  the  Frenchmen  of  Corneille,  of  Racine,  of 
Voltaire,  minus  the  masterly  disguise  cast  over  them  by 
those  authors.  The  imitation  of  French  models  is  the 
keynote  of  all  Soumarokov's  work.  From  Shakespeare, 
whom  he  only  knew,  indeed,  through  German  transla- 
tions, he  borrowed  no  more  than  the  semblance  of  a 
subject  just  then  becoming  popular.  Apart,  indeed, 
from  the  soliloquy  in  the  first  act,  his  Hamlet  bears 
no  resemblance  to  that  of  the  English  poet.  From 
Corneille,  from  Racine,  from  Voltaire,  he  borrows  their 
hasty  psychology,  carrying  it  even  farther  from  Nature 
than  in  their  case.  His  Khorev,  his  Trouvory  his  Deme- 
iriusy  are  mere  abstractions,  artificial  personifications  of 
some  single  idea  or  sentiment,  which  probably  has  no 
correspondence  whatever  with  their  natural  or  probable 
physionomy. 

In  the  same  way  he  exaggerates  and  parodies  Moliere, 
till  comedy  becomes  a  farce,  criticism  of  habits  and 
customs  degenerates  into  mere  pamphleteering,  and 
epigram  develops  into  insult. 

Yet  it  is  only  just  to  remember  his  education  and 
surroundings,  and  Pouchkine's  severe  treatment  of  him 
betrays  a  further  forgetfulness  of  the  laws  of  histori- 
cal perspective.  Foreign  literature  in  the  Russia  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  not  a  bud  carefully  grafted  on 
the  native  trunk.  It  was  the  plant  itself,  suddenly  set  in 
a  soil  that  was  poorly  prepared  for  its  reception.  In 
spite  of  this  drawback,  it  was  to  grow,  and  grow  vigor- 
ously, and,  as  it  absorbed  and  assimilated  the  juices  of  the 


SOUMAROKOV  8i 

earth  in  which  it  was  planted,  it  was  speedily  to  eliminate 
all  foreign  elements  near  it.  But  we  cannot  wonder  that 
the  earliest  fruits  were  unsatisfactory,  ugly  to  look  at, 
scentless,  and  flavourless. 

The  literary  attempts  of  Soumarokov  and  his  contem- 
poraries, it  must  be  further  observed,  fell  on  a  period  of 
transition  in  Western  literature,  during  which  the  pseudo- 
classic  style  itself  was  growing  corrupt  and  debased. 
Soumarokov  was  far  more  haunted  by  the  glory  of 
Voltaire  than  he  was  disturbed  by  the  successes  of  his 
rival  Lomonossov.  Though  he  composed  odes  to  the 
number  of  eighty,  so  as  to  outstrip  Lomonossov  in  that 
respect,  though,  like  him,  he  translated  Psalms,  and  ex- 
ceeded him  in  piling  up  platitudes,  couched  in  fervent 
dithyrambs,  in  honour  of  the  virtues  of  Elizabeth,  it  was 
on  Voltaire  that  his  mind  was  set  when  he  wandered 
from  the  lyric  drama  to  the  eclogue,  from  idyl  to 
madrigal,  from  epigram  to  epitaph.  There  is  perhaps 
much  to  criticise  in  this.  But  criticism  did  not  exist 
in  a  society  which,  intellectually  peaking,  was  in  the 
embryonic  state,  which  possessed  far  more  appetite  than 
taste,  and  looked  less  at  the  quality  than  at  the  quan- 
tity of  the  dishes  set  before  it.  In  1759  Soumarokov 
conceived  the  idea  of  founding  a  literary  periodical,  the 
first  seen  in  his  country,  modelled  on  those  of  Steele  and 
Addison,  and  thus  opened  a  path  which  was  not  to  be 
retrodden  till  Bielinski  appeared  upon  the  scene,  nearly 
a  century  later.  The  best  Soumarokov  could  achieve 
in  this  publication  was  to  imitate  Boileau,  in  a  purely 
external  criticism,  directed  against  faults  of  language,  of 
grammar  and  syntax,  and  strongly  coloured  by  personal 
likes  and  dislikes.  Thus  Lomonossov  was  most  fre- 
quently  attacked,   for   having   turned   the   language    of 


82  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Moscow  into  an  "Archangel  patois^*  and  Soumaro- 
kov's  temper,  which  was  swayed  by  his  wounded  vanity, 
was  allowed  its  full  play. 

But  it  was  vanity  alone  that  had  made  him  a  man 
of  letters,  and  how  exasperating  were  the  conditions, 
moral  and  material,  under  which  he  worked !  He  edited 
a  review.  His  occasional  collaborators,  Trediakovski, 
Kozitski,  Poletika,  generally  left  all  the  labour  to  him, 
and  at  the  end  of  the  first  year  his  subscribers  had  all 
deserted  him.  He  managed  a  theatre.  Out  of  his  salary 
of  5000  roubles  he  had  to  bear  all  the  expenses  of  pro- 
duction, and  three  parts  of  the  seats  were  occupied  by  a 
non-paying  audience  !  One  day  he  was  fain  to  warn 
Chouvalov  that  there  would  be  no  performance,  be- 
cause there  was  no  costume  for  "  Trouvor  "  to  put  on  ! 
The  public,  whether  it  paid  or  not,  was  coarse  in  its  beha- 
viour, talked  loud,  and  "  cracked  nuts  "  during  the  per- 
formance, and  took  much  more  interest  in  the  dresses 
of  the  actors  and  the  persons  of  the  actresses,  than  in 
the  action  of  the  piec^. 

These  causes  aggravated  Soumarokov's  natural  sus- 
ceptibility until  it  became  a  real  malady.  He  took  it 
into  his  head  to  compile  a  book  of  comparative  extracts 
from  his  own  odes  and  those  of  Lomonossov,  to  prove 
that  he  himself  was  the  only  person  who  knew  how  to 
imitate  Malherbe  and  Rousseau.  In  1755  the  Mercure 
de  France  published  a  detailed  and  very  laudatory 
account  of  one  of  his  tragedies.  This  sufficed  to  con- 
vince him  that  in  future  he  would  take  rank  with  Vol- 
taire. He  sent  some  of  his  works  to  Ferney,  received 
a  batch  of  compliments  in  return,  and  thought  himself 
qualified  to  share  the  throne  of  the  literary  world  with 
its  master.     In  Russia,  at  all  events,  he  claimed  despotic 


SOUMAROKOV  83 

powers.  In  1764  he  desired  leave  to  travel  abroad  at  the 
expense  of  the  Crown.  "  If  Europe  were  described  by 
such  a  pen  as  mine,  an  outlay  of  300,000  would  seem 
small.  .  .  .  What  has  been  seen  at  Athens,  what  is  now 
to  be  seen  in  Paris,  is  also  seen  in  Russia,  by  my  care. 
.  .  .  In  Germany,  a  crowd  of  poets  has  not  produced 
what  I  have  succeeded  in  doing  by  my  own  effort." 

His  effort,  great  as  it  was,  received  a  poor  reward. 
Chance  did  Soumarokov  a  bad  turn  when  it  made  him 
a  would-be  rival  of  Racine  and  Voltaire.  His  true 
literary  vocation  was  quite  different.  In  the  course  of 
his  many  attempts  in  different  directions,  he  touched  on 
the  form  of  literature  in  which  Kantemir  so  delighted, 
and  himself  found  it  to  possess  a  strong  and  inspiring 
charm.  There  is  nothing  very  wonderful  about  the  form 
of  his  satires,  fables,  and  apologues  ;  yet  there  is  such 
distinctness  in  his  pictures,  such  vigour  in  his  ideas,  such  • 
intensity  in  his  feeling,  that  even  in  the  present  day  the 
national  genius  betrays  his  influence  in  traits  which  have 
become  proverbial.  He  draws  us  pictures  of  local  life, 
thrust  clumsily  enough  into  the  setting  already  borrowed 
by  Kantemir  from  Boileau,  but  far  fresher  and  more 
lively — his  ideas — the  humanitarian  notions  of  his  own 
period,  quite  unsuited  to  the  native  Russian  system, 
introduced,  nevertheless,  some  conception  of  liberty, 
of  tolerance,  of  intellectual  progress,  and,  through 
everything  runs  a  deep,  sincere,  ingenuous  feeling  of 
patriotism,  attachment  to  his  fatherland,  and  national 
pride. 

Notice,  in  the  Chorus  to  the  Corrupt  Worlds  the 
story  of  the  bird  that  flies  back  from  foreign  climes, 
*'  where  men  are  not  sold  like  cattle  .  .  .  where  patri- 
monies are  not  staked  on  a  single  card.  .  .  .  Yet  the  bird 


84  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

returns  as  fast  as  its  wings  will  carry  it,  and  joyfully 
perches  on  the  branch  of  a  Russian  birch-tree." 

The  description  of  the  death  of  '^  Trouvor  "  is  a  mere 
transcription  of  that  of  Theramene.  The  soliloquy  of 
Demetrius  (^'  The  diadem  of  the  Tsars  seems  to  tremble 
on  my  brow")  recalls  that  of  Richard  III.,  which  Pouch- 
kine,  in  his  turn,  was  to  remember.  Yet  the  author  of 
Trouvor  and  Demetrius  has  not  scrupled  to  direct  his 
satire  against  the  combination  of  French  habits  and 
literature  which  had  taken  root  in  his  country.  Lomo- 
nossov's  works,  jealous  though  he  was  of  him,  convinced 
him  that  the  national  literature  was  nearing  a  brighter 
future.  He  perceived  the  rise  of  the  new  sap,  rich 
in  originality.  And  it  may  be,  indeed,  that  but  for  the 
approaching  period  of  exaggerated  occidentalism  arising 
out  of  another  German  reign,  that  of  Catherine  the  Great, 
of  Anhalt  and  Zerbst,  his  own  effort  might  have  won  a 
different  result,  and  the  nationalisation  of  the  patrimony 
created  by  the  moujik  of  Archangel  might  have  been 
accelerated  by  half  a  century. 

Soumarokov  himself  had  no  direct  heirs.  His  colla- 
borators in  the  department  of  the  drama  were  Fiodor 
Volkov  (1729-1763)  and  Dmitrievski.  Of  the  literary 
work  of  the  first  named  (who  also  distinguished  himself 
as  an  actor,  an  architect,  a  decorator,  and  stage-carpen- 
ter), the  only  specimen  remaining  to  us  is  a  masquerade, 
The  Triumph  of  Minerva,  published  in  1763.  Dmit- 
rievski began  by  playing  the  female  parts  in  Volkov's 
company.  After  having  spent  two  years  abroad,  he  suc- 
ceeded the  manager  as  leading  actor.  I  find  him  some 
time  later  a  member  of  the  *^  Academy  of  Science,"  of 
the  *'  Free  Society  of  Economy,"  and  of  the  *'  Society  of 
Friends  of  Russian  Literature."     A  man  who  had  trodden 


PRINCESS  DOLGOROUKAIA  85 

the  soil  on  which  VoUaire  first  saw  the  Hght  could  not 
remain  a  mere  player.  He  composed  plays,  made  adap- 
tations, and  WTote  a  History  of  the  Theatre  in  Russia^  the 
original  of  which  has  been  lost,  but  on  which  another 
actor,  ].  Nossov,  founded  a  summary  which  has  been 
highly  valued. 

The  scientific  movement  of  this  period,  being  distinct 
from  the  literary,  does  not  come  within  the  scope  of  these 
pages.  Apart  from  the  labours  of  Lomonossov  and 
Soumarokov,  it  is  only  represented  by  the  work  and 
originating  effort  of  a  few  meritorious  foreigners — 
Miiller,  Schlozer,  Bilfinger. 

A  good  many  memoirs  have  come  dow^n  to  us  from 
the  reign  of  Anna  Ivanovna.  The  most  deserving  of 
mention  are  those  of  Princess  Dolgoroukaia,  Prince 
Chakhofskoi  (1705-1772),  Nachtchokine  (died  1761),  and 
Danilov.  Natalia  Borissovna  Dolgoroukaia  (1713- 
1770)  was  the  heroine  of  a  drama  which  drew  many  a  tear 
from  Russian  eyes,  and  inspired  a  whole  pleiad  of  poets, 
Kozlov  among  the  number.  She  was  likewise  the  proto- 
type of  an  historical  element  wherein  some  observers 
have  perceived — and,  it  may  be,  rightly  perceived — the 
ideal  side  of  modern  Russia — the  sublime  counterbalance 
to  certain  moral  failings  which  mar  the  glory  of  her 
mighty  progress.  She  seems,  almost  a  century  before 
their  time,  to  herald  the  approach  of  those  wives  of  the 
Decembrists  of  1825,  who  besought  permission  to  follow 
their  husbands  to  Siberia  and  share  their  fate.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  Field-Marshal  Boris  Cheremetiev, 
the  valiant  comrade  in  arms  of  Peter  the  Great,  and  up 
to  the  eve  of  the  catastrophe  which  was  to  render  her  an 
object  of  eternal  pity,  her  future  promised  brilliantly. 
She  was  eighteen,  radiantly  beautiful,  one  of  the  greatest 


86  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

heiresses  in  Russia,  and  betrothed  to  Ivan  Dolgorouki, 
the  prime  favourite  of  the  reigning  Tsar,  Peter  II. 
Before  her  wedding-day  dawned,  all  these  joys  had  been 
swept  away.  The  Tsar's  death,  the  favourite's  disgrace, 
the  persecution  that  overwhelmed  his  entire  family,  con- 
fiscation, banishment,  cast  the  unhappy  woman  on  to  a 
path  of  misery,  which  she  was  to  tread,  through  sorrow 
upon  sorrow,  until  her  life  closed.  She  followed  her 
betrothed,  whom  she  was  resolved  to  make  her  husband, 
to  Berezov,  a  village  far  away  on  the  Siberian  moors. 
She  slipped  furtively  into  the  dungeon — a  mere  hole 
dug  in  the  frozen  earth — where  he  was  slowly  dying  of 
hunger,  bringing  him  food  and  her  caresses.  Not  long 
after,  she  saw  him  die  in  unspeakable  anguish  at  Nov- 
gorod, and  she  herself  lived  on,  that  the  two  children 
born  of  their  few  hours  of  love  might  not  be  left  mother- 
less. 

Elizabeth's  accession  recalled  her  to  Moscow,  but 
the  world  saw  her  no  more.  As  soon  as  her  children's 
education  was  completed,  she  repaired  to  Kiev,  cast  her 
betrothal  ring  into  the  Dnieper,  and  took  the  veil.  Her 
memoirs  were  written  in  her  convent  cell.  We  look  in 
vain  for  a  complaint ;  only  in  the  few  lines  she  wrote 
when  she  felt  her  end  approaching,  we  read,  "  I  hope, 
every  Christian  soul  will  rejoice  at  my  death,  and  say, 
^  Her  weeping  is  ended.'  "  Insensitive  ?  No  !  Nor  a  pas- 
sive victim  either  !  Proud,  indeed,  passionate,  very  irri- 
table, incapable  of  forgetting  that  she  was  a  Dolgoroukaia, 
nor  that  Biron,  the  favourite  of  Anne,  whom  she  believed 
to  be  the  author  of  all  her  sorrows,  had  made  her  uncle's 
boots,  a  detail,  by  the  way,  in  which  her  memory  played 
her  false.  Passing  along  the  Oka  River  on  her  way  to 
Siberia,  she  bought  a  live  sturgeon,  and  made  it  swim 


MEMOIRS  87 

behind  her  boat,  so,  she  declared,  as  to  have  a  companion 
in  her  captivity.  But  though  she  never  lost  her  feminine 
sensitiveness  and  her  patrician  pride,  she  did  not  rebel. 
She  proved  herself  a  true  Christian  by  her  resignation 
and  by  her  endurance  ;  she  showed  herself  the  worthy 
daughter  of  a  race  which  centuries  of  torture  have  in- 
structed in  the  art  of  suffering.  We  shall  find  this  trait 
repeated. 

The  most  striking  feature  of  the  other  memoirs  to 
which  I  have  referred  is  the  alarming  vacuum  as  regards 
things  moral,  in  which  the  authors,  and  the  whole  society 
they  describe  in  their  reminiscences,  appear  to  have  lan- 
guished. 

The  personages  drawn  by  Danilov  seem  to  have 
served  Von  Visine  and  Catherine  II.  as  models  for  the 
comic  types  to  which  I  shall  presently  refer. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  BONDAGE  OF  THE  WEST— CATHERINE  II. 

Even  in  certain  manuals  published  in  foreign  countries, 
the  reign  of  the  Northern  Semiramis  is  described  as  the 
*' Golden  Age"  of  Russian  literature.  The  only  justifica- 
tion for  this  title  lies  in  the  amount  of  gold  distributed  by 
the  Tsarina  among  her  French  and  German  panegyrists. 
The  period  of  her  reign  is  filled  by  a  twofold  labour,  the 
beginnings  of  which  date  farther  back,  and  have  been 
already  indicated  in  these  pages.  In  the  first  place,  we 
have  the  hasty  and  feverish  absorption  of  the  huma- 
nitarian ideas,  symptoms  of  which  we  have  already 
noticed  in  the  works  of  Soumarokov.  The  national 
mind  comes  into  contact,  though  still  indirectly,  and 
by  percolation  through  other  countries,  with  English 
thought.  This  external  process  is  accompanied  by 
another,  internal,  or  more  secret,  whereby  a  conscious 
national  individuality  is  gradually  elaborated.  This 
development  is  assisted  by  the  philosophical  ideas 
which  have  been  imported  from  abroad.  Soumaro- 
kov's  quarrels  with  individual  foreigners  generally  led 
him  into  wholesale  opposition  to  France.  His  suc- 
cessors showed  more  discretion.  They  summed  up  the 
total  of  their  exotic  importations,  and  separated  those 
worth  keeping  from  those  which,  even  in  their  native 
home,  had  already  been  cast  aside.  The  natural  conse- 
quence was  a  feeling  of  disenchantment  and  self-exami- 


CATHERINE  89 

nation.  This  found  expression,  among  the  learned,  by 
the  pubUcation  of  chronicles  and  other  documents  bear- 
ing on  the  past  history  of  the  nation,  and  of  books 
containing  the  collected  treasures  of  its  literature  ;  the 
foundation  of  a  "Russian  Academy,"  charged  with  the 
duty  of  preparing  a  dictionary  and  a  grammar  of  its 
language;  and  the  organisation  of  exploratory  journeys 
throughout  the  interior  of  the  country.  The  same  cause 
gave  rise,  in  the  domain  of  literature,  to  a  number  of 
works  inspired  by  national  subjects  and  idealising  them 
beyond  all  measure. 

Thus  two  currents  were  formed,  which,  under  the 
names  of  Occidentalism,  and  of  Nationalism,  or  Slavo- 
philism, continue  to  flow  even  in  the  present  day.  In 
the  celebrated  Set  of  Questions  addressed  to  Catherine 
by  Von  Visine,  and  looked  on  as  an  indiscretion  by 
the  Tsarina,  the  disquieting  problem  arising  out  of 
them  —  that  of  reconciling  these  two  extremes  —  was 
made  apparent.  The  Tsarina  knew  nothing,  and  cared 
little,  about  it.  She  began  by  favouring  both  move- 
ments ;  then,  when  they  grew  inconvenient,  she  opposed, 
and  even  checked  them  absolutely,  or  something  very 
near  it.  Especially  she  encouraged  the  pseudo-classic 
literature  at  the  expense  of  those  original  produc- 
tions springing  from  the  popular  instinct,  of  which 
we  have  noticed  the  first-fruits  in  Frol  Skobieiev.  It 
would  not  be  just  to  cast  the  whole  responsibility  on 
her.  The  same  phenomenon  may  be  observed  in  all 
quarters,  as  the  natural  and  inevitable  result  of  the  Re- 
naissance, and  the  artificial  culture  it  imposed.  In  this 
manner  Germany  went  so  far  as  to  forget  her  own  native 
language.  For  two  centuries,  German  authors  wrote 
first  in  Latin  and  then  in  French.     And  the  intellectual 


90  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

capital  of  the  country,  richer  than  that  of  Russia,  suf- 
fered even  more  by  this  neglect.  Yet,  under  an 
autocratic  regime  like  the  Russian,  every  phase  of  life 
depends  more  or  less  on  the  sovereign — either  on  his 
influence  or  on  his  will.  And  when  the  ruler  is  himself 
a  writer,  he  has  power,  at  all  events,  to  regulate  the  pro- 
gress of  literature  with  a  despotic  hand,  even  if  he  does 
not  absolutely  determine  the  direction  of  its  develop- 
ment. Russia  was  bound  to  go  through  her  classical  edu- 
cation, but  the  stage  need  not  have  been  such  a  long 
one,  and  might  have  been  less  prejudicial  to  her  natural 
faculties. 

Like  the  worthy  descendant  of  Peter  the  Great  she 
claimed  to  be,  Catherine  began  by  opening  her  doors 
and  windows  to  every  wind  of  heaven.  She  defied  the 
tempest,  held  disputations  with  Novikov,  and  admitted 
Diderot  to  her  most  intimate  circle.  When  the  Ency- 
clopedist's violent  gestures  grew  displeasing  to  her,  she 
held  her  familiar  conversations  with  him  across  a  table, 
and  so  continued  to  enjoy  the  ideas  he  communicated 
to  her.  To  her  all  this  was  a  mere  intellectual  sport, 
useful  for  the  entertainment  of  leisure  hours.  The  only 
places,  indeed,  that  were  open  to  this  current  of  fresh 
air  were  her  own  palace,  and  those  of  a  few  of  the 
nobles  who  surrounded  her.  The  people's  huts,  and 
even  the  dwellings  of  the  country  gentlemen  who  had 
been  attracted  to  St.  Petersburg,  were  still  impene- 
trable, hermetically  sealed,  every  chink  closed  by  tradi- 
tion, bigotry,  and  ignorance.  The  outer  breeze  might 
blow  in,  therefore,  and  do  no  harm.  Within  those 
luxurious  halls,  it  could  always  draw  jeering  notes 
from  Frederick  II.'s  flute,  and  weave  them  into  some 
gay    country    dance.      Liberty,    when    it    entered    that 


CATHERINE  91 

circle,  became  mere  license,  an  elegant  screen  for 
debauchery. 

But  presently  the  West  began  to  thunder  in  real 
earnest.  Instantly  Catherine  took  fright.  Let  every- 
thing be  closed!  Shutters,  padlocks,  triple  locks  on 
every  door !  Let  no  one  move  abroad  I  One  man, 
]§adichtchev,  a  candid  earnest  soul,  persisted  in  remain- 
ing out  of  doors,  listening  eagerly  to  the  whirlwind, 
noting  down  the  clamour,  which  now  terrified  the 
sovereign.  "To  prison  with  him!"  she  cried.  He  was 
condemned  to  death.  She  commuted  his  sentence, 
sent  him  to  Siberia,  and  the  Western  and  humanitarian 
current  was  stopped  short.  The  other,  the  Nationalist 
current,  still  remained,  and  the  reaction  now  begun 
seemed  likely  to  be  favourable  to  it.  Unfortunately, 
among  Slavophils  of  the  stamp  of  Novikov  there  existed 
a  compromising  leaven  of  humanitarian  views.  Novikov 
was  a  "  populariser."  He  distributed  pamphlets  and 
founded  schools.  So  he,  too,  went  to  prison,  and 
Catherine  breathed  freely  once  more.  She  was  to  have 
peace  at  last.  By  the  end  of  her  reign  scarcely  any 
one  wrote.     Under  Paul  I.  nobody  dared  to  speak. 

This  epoch  corresponds,  in  the  history  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  national  genius,  to  a  childish  illness,  natural 
in  itself,  but  aggravated  by  accidental  circumstances ; 
the  most  harmful  of  which  was  acclaimed  by  contem- 
porary philosophers,  and  is  acclaimed  by  some  of  their 
present  descendants,  as  a  benefit  sent  from  heaven. 
Even  during  the  period  of  great  literary  activity  which 
preceded  the  final  check,  Catherine's  excessive  Occi- 
dentalism interfered  with  the  normal  development  of 
the  tree,  which  was  disturbed  by  the  constant  and  exag- 
gerated system  of   grafts  imposed  upon  it.     Catherine 


r 


92  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

was  only  a  German,  who  had  learnt  Russian  while  she 
ran  barefoot  about  her  room,  but  who  knew  French 
far  better.  She  wrote  a  great  deal,  she  shared  the 
literary  itch  of  her  time,  and  in  this  sense  she  certainly 
did  a  useful  work  of  propagation.  But  in  vain  do  we 
seek  for  a  single  original  idea  in  all  her  writings.  She 
gives  us  an  heroic  imitation  of  Voltaire,  and  even  of 
Shakespeare,  and  is  surrounded  by  a  legion  of  plagiarists, 
all  the  humble  slaves  of  Encyclopedic  philosophy,  of 
Ossianic  poetry,  of  bourgeois  comedy,  and  of  a  whole 
seraglio  of  foreign  Muses,  upon  whom  they  wait  as 
shrill-voiced  eunuchs,  and  no  more.  Even  Di^rjavine 
has  none  of  the  dash,  the  conviction,  of  Lomonossov, 
nor  his  sonorous  language. 

The  first  specimen  of  the  Tsarina's  literary  activity 
was  a  *^  Miscellany "  ( Vssiaka'ia  Vssyatchind),  a  news- 
paper published  under  her  direction  (1769-1770)  by  her 
private  secretary,  Gregory  Vassilievitch  Kozitski.  At  a 
later  period  she  turned  her  attention  to  the  drama,  wrote 
a  series  of  comedies,  plays,  and  operas,  and,  in  1783,  went 
back  to  journalism,  and  inserted  satirical  articles,  notably 
the  Realities  and  Fictions  {Byli  i  Niebylitsy)  published 
in  The  Interlocutor  (Sobiessi^dnik)  and  in  other  journals. 
When  the  French  Revolution  broke  out,  Semiramis  put 
away  her  inkstand. 

There  is  a  literary  character  about  a  great  deal  of 
her  private  correspondence,  and  she  composed  for  her 
grandsons  a  little  library  (the  Alexandro-ConstantinCy  as 
she  called  it),  wherein  figured  instructive  tales  inspired  by 
Montaigne,  Locke,  Basedow,  and  Rousseau,  a  collection 
of  proverbs,  and  some  allegorical  stories  founded  on  the 
national  legends. 

In  her  Notes  on  Russian  History j  and  in  a  refutation 


CATHERINE  93 

of  the  Abbe  Chappe's  Voyage  in  Siberia^  published  under 
the  title  of  The  Antidote j  she  also  touched  on  science. 
She  must  have  had  numerous  collaborators,  for  she 
could  never  write  with  ease  in  any  language.  Novikov 
is  supposed  to  have  had  a  hand  in  some — the  least  in- 
ferior— of  her  comedies ;  and  this  hypothesis  would 
seem  to  find  confirmation  in  the  history  of  her  relations 
with  the  celebrated  writer. 

Her  plays  numbered  about  thirty,  I  believe.  All  that 
now  remain  to  us  are  eleven  comedies  and  dramas, 
seven  operas,  and  five  proverbs.  In  spite  of  Diderot's 
assertion  to  the  contrary,  none  of  these  possess  the 
smallest  artistic  value. 

Catherine  gave  out,  in  fact,  that  in  these  dramatic 
efforts  of  hers  she  only  pursued  three  objects.  First, 
her  own  amusement ;  second,  the  feeding  of  the  national 
repertory,  which  was  sorely  starved ;  third,  a  means 
of  opposing  Freemasonry.  "  O  Temporal  O  Mores!  " 
gives  us  the  picture  of  a  sham  devotee,  Mme.  Khanjak- 
hina,  who  kneels  in  wrapt  devotion  before  the  sacred 
pictures  when  her  creditors  come  to  ask  for  their 
money,  beats  her  servant-girls  with  her  missal,  and 
runs  from  one  church  to  another  to  collect  gossip. 
All  this  is  easily  recognised  as  a  pleading  in  self-defence, 
directed  against  those  who  were  scandalised  by  the 
free  and  joyous  life  led  by  the  august  writer.  Another 
comedy,  Mine,  Vortchalkhind s  Wedding-Dayy  repeats  this 
theme  with  some  variations.  The  remainder,  all  of  them 
written  after  the  author's  quarrel  with  Novikov,  are  much 
weaker.  In  one  of  these.  The  History  of  a  Linen-Basket^ 
Catherine  has  adapted  some  scenes  from  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor, 

At  the  head  of  two  of  her  pieces,  Rurik  and  Oleg^  she 


94  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

has  written  Imitated  from  Shakespeare.  She  had  read 
the  EngUsh  tragedian  in  Eschenberg's  German  transla- 
tion, and  had  done  her  best  to  reproduce  as  much  of  her 
model  as  she  had  been  able  to  comprehend — no  more 
than  some  purely  external  features.  Apart  from  these, 
her  Ruriky  composed  during  her  anti-revolutionary 
period,  is  the  outcome  of  the  Encyclopedic  spirit,  and 
expresses  ideas  and  sentiments  as  foreign  to  the  soul 
of  Shakespeare,  probably,  as  to  that  of  any  Varegian 
prince. 

The  other  plays,  written  at  the  period  of  those 
dreams  of  expansion  which  the  Tsarina  and  Patiomkine 
nursed  in  company,  belongs  more  to  the  domain  of 
politics  than  to  that  of  art  or  national  history.  In  it  we 
are  shown  Oleg  making  his  victorious  entry  wathin  the 
walls  of  Constantinople. 

This  was  yet  another  way  of  fighting  the  Turks.  To 
wage  war  with  the  Freemasons  both  in  the  press  and  on 
the  stage,  Catherine  went  back  to  the  fortress  of  her 
^*  enlightened  despotism."  The  Freemasons  who  ven- 
tured to  found  schools  and  hospitals  struck  her  in  the 
light  of  most  presumptuous  rivals.  Was  not  that  her 
affair  ?  She  did  not  treat  her  enemies  fairly,  and  was 
apt  to  confound  such  men  as  Novikov  with  Cagliostro. 
Three  of  her  comedies,  Chamane  of  Siberia^  The  Deceiver^ 
and  The  Deceived^  belonged  to  this  category. 

The  sovereign's  relations  with  Novikov  had  their 
origin  in  a  somewhat  lively  controversy  between  the 
Micellanies  and  The  Drone  {Trout^gne).  Novikov  edited 
this  last  journal.  Catherine  was  anxious  to  win  over 
the  laughers  to  her  side.  Naturally  cheerful,  with- 
out a  shadow  of  sentimentality,  and  a  marked  taste  for 
buffoonery,  she   worshipped    Lesage,  preferred  Moliere 


CATHERINE  95 

to  Racine,  and  especially  enjoyed  the  comic  element  in 
Shakespeare.  When  Novikov,  in  The  Drone,  attacked 
the  traditional  vices  of  the  political  and  social  life  of 
Russia,  which  the  Reform  had  done  nothing  to  extirpate, 
Catherine  acknowledged  the  justice  of  his  complaint,  but 
objected  to  the  tragic  view  he  took  of  matters.  The 
officials  did  wrong  to  steal,  that  was  certain,  and  the 
judges  did  wrong  to  take  bribes ;  but  all  the  poor 
wretches  were  exposed  to  so  many  temptations  !  When 
argument  failed  her  she  grew  angry,  reminded  her 
opponent  that  not  so  very  long  ago  his  behaviour 
would  have  brought  him  into  imminent  risk  of«  making 
acquaintance  with  the  country  of  Chamaney  and  answered 
him  in  the  most  conclusive  manner  by  suppressing  The 
Drone  (1770). 

The  publicist,  thus  silenced,  grew  convinced,  more 
or  less  sincerely,  that  bitter  criticism,  pitiless  satire, 
acrimony  and  anger,  were  not  the  best  moralising  agents 
he  could  choose.  He  made  overtures  of  reconciliation, 
to  which  Catherine  wiUingly  responded.  They  met,  they 
came  to  an  understanding,  and  collaborated  in  a  new 
publication.  The  Painter  {Jivopisiets),  and  also,  probably, 
in  the  comedies  O  Tempora  !  O  Mores  I  and  The  Wedding- 
Da.}^,  in  both  of  which  Novikov's  pet  ideas,  his  hatred  of 
Gallomania  and  his  anxiety  concerning  the  miserable  •  ^ 
condition  of  the  Russian  peasant,  are  clearly  seen.  -J 

But  this  work  in  double  harness  was  not  destined  to 
be  of  long  duration.  In  1774  The  Painter,  accused 
of  being  connected  with  Freemasonry,  was  suppressed 
in  its  turn,  and  the  budding  progress  of  the  Russian 
press  suffered  a  check.  The  St.  Petersburg  Messenger, 
which  began  to  appear  in  1779,  shared  its  predecessor's 
fate  before  two  years  were  out ;  and  the  Interlocutor  of 


96  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

the  Friends  of  the  Russian  Tongue^  which  replaced  it  in 
1783,  marks  a  return  to  the  official  journalism  of  the 
preceding  period.  In  this  publication  Catherine  in- 
serted one  of  her  most  curious  works,  under  the  title  of 
Realities  and  Fictions.  In  it  we  find  a  series  of  hard- 
hitting articles,  with  no  connecting  link  save  a  general 
tone  of  humorous  banter  directed  against  the  society  of 
that  day.  They  are  always  full  of  gaiety,  go,  and  youth, 
— the  imperial  authoress  was  then  fifty — of  wit  which 
entertains  itself,  and  seems  sure  (sometimes  without 
sufficient  reason)  that  it  will  amuse  others,  together  with 
a  close  knowledge  of  every  social  circle,  even  the  lowest, 
and  an  evident  moral  intention  which  surprises  us  in 
the  case  of  the  heroine  of  a  romance  which  had  already 
reached  so  many  chapters.  The  satirical  touch  seems 
heavier  here  than  in  the  comedies  ;  the  morality  more 
easy-going.     We  are  far  from  the  days  of  Novikov. 

But  Catherine  must  have  some  one  to  contradict 
her.  The  journal  was  supposed  to  be  a  tilt-yard,  where 
all  opinions  were  free  to  meet.  She  found  Von  Visine. 
He  drew  up  his  famous  Set  of  Questions^  and  inquired, 
among  other  things,  "  Why  buffoons,  wags,  and  harle- 
quins, who  in  times  gone  by  had  no  occupation  except 
to  amuse  people,  were  now  given  places  and  honours 
which  did  not  seem  intended  for  them  ?  "  The  question 
was  a  direct  thrust  at  Narychkine,  one  of  the  sovereign's 
intimate  friends.  She  considered  it  very  impertinent, 
and  the  author  was  obliged  to  apologise  humbly,  and 
to  renounce  all  future  efforts  of  the  kind.  Princess 
Dachkov,  w^ho  now  entered  the  lists,  fared  no  better. 
At  the  first  thrust,  Catherine  put  a  stop  to  the  encounter. 
She  wrote  to  Grimm,  ^^This  journal  will  not  be  so  good 
in  future,  because  the  buffoons  have  quarrelled  with  the 


CATHERINE  97 

editors.     These  last  cannot  fail  to  suffer.     It  was  the 
delight  of  the  court  and  the  town." 

The  buffoons — her  own  self — grew  serious  and  grave, 
replaced  Realities  and  Fictions  by  Notes  on  Russian 
History, -^nd  the  journal  did  actually  lose  the  greater  part 
of  its  readers.  The  spirit  of  these  articles  is  that  of 
The  Antidote,  with  the  same  evident  anxiety  to  defend 
the  threatened  prestige  of  the  nation,  and  the  same 
use  of  scientific  arguments  which  are  quite  beside  the 
mark.  Thus  she  wanders  on,  irrationally  and  impertur- 
bably,  till  the  year  1784,  when  her  taste  for  literature 
is  quenched,  for  some  considerable  time,  by  the  death 
of  the  handsome  Lanskoi'.  The  pedagogic  works  to 
which  I  have  already  referred  belong  to  the  last  period 
of  the  Tsarina's  life.  In  them  she  drew  liberally  on 
Locke  and  Rousseau,  while  simultaneously  applying  the 
theory  of  the  superiority  of  education  over  teaching, 
borrowed  from  the  two  great  writers,  to  the  bringing 
up  of  her  grandsons. 

Catherine  served  the  cause  of  science  and  literature 
less  by  her  writings  than  by  an  initiatory  instinct  which 
was  frequently  happy,  and  by  her  really  royal  gift  of 
grouping  individual  efforts.  The  famous  Dictionary  of 
Languages  and  Dialects,  published  at  St.  Petersburg  in 
1 787-1 789,  with  the  assistance  of  the  Russian  Academician 
and  traveller  Pallas,  the  German  bookseller  and  critic 
Nicolai,  Bacmeister,  and  Arndt,  was  produced  in  this 
way,  and  is  a  landmark  in  the  history  of  linguistic  study. 
Further,  though  in  a  limited  circle,  and  under  the  form 
of  a  somewhat  capricious  dilettantism,  she  propagated 
a  taste  for  science  and  literature  among  people  whose 
favourite  pastime  had  hitherto  consisted  in  watching 
wild  beasts  fight,  or  fighting  with  their  own  fists.     And 


98  .      RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

finally — though  for  only  too  short  a  time — she  inaugu- 
rated a  regime  of  liberty  in  press  matters,  which  Russia 
v^    was  never  to  know  again. 

I  have  already  explained  the  manner  in  which  Cathe- 
rine's intervention  and  her  influence  may  have  been 
harmful.  A  consideration  of  the  works  of  Von  Visine 
will  enable  my  readers  to  judge  this  point  more  clearly. 

The  greatest  writer  of  this  period  was  a  German. 
His  ancestors  served  under  the  banner  of  the  Teutonic 
Order  of  the  Sword-bearers,  and  were  numbered  among 
the  most  doughty  foes  of  the  Slav  race.  The  family 
settled  in  Russia  in  the  days  of  Ivan  the  Terrible, 
and  Denis  Ivanovitch  von  Visine  (1744-1792)  was 
born  at  Moscow.  To  another  German,  at  whom,  in 
a  biographical  essay,  he  pokes  rather  spiteful  fun,  he 
probably  owed  the  fact  of  his  becoming  a  playwright. 
A  performance  of  a  piece  by  the  Danish  dramatist, 
Holberg,  given  in  St.  Petersburg  during  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  appears  to  have  settled  his  vocation.  In 
1766,  while  performing  the  functions  of  Secretary  to 
the  Minister,  I.  P.  lelaguine,  he  wrote  his  Brigadier, 

The  reading  of  this  comedy  met  with  so  brilliant  a 
success  that  all  the  great  people  in  St.  Petersburg,  in- 
cluding the  Empress,  desired  to  hear  it.  But  the  author 
was  at  that  moment  in  the  throes  of  a  religious  crisis, 
which  is  said  to  have  been  brought  about  by  the  discourse 
of  the  Procurator  of  the  Holy  Synod,  Tch^bichev,  who, 
though  he  represented  the  highest  ecclesiastical  authority 
in  the  country,  was  an  atheist.  His  influence  over  Von 
Visine's  mind  was  successfully  overcome  by  that  of 
Samuel  Clarke,  in  whose  theological  works  the  writer 
delighted.  He  even  went  so  far  as  to  translate  some 
chapters  of   the    Treatise   on   the  Existence  of  Cody  and 


VON  VISINE  99 

grew  calmer  in  the  process.  But  idleness  fell  upon  his 
pen.  He  climbed  the  professional  ladder,  became  sec- 
retary to  the  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  N.  S.  Panine, 
in  1769,  grew  rich,  and  travelled  abroad.  He  sojourned 
at  Leipzig,  at  Lyons,  at  Montpellier,  and  finally  at  Paris, 
whence  he  wrote  Panine  a  series  of  letters  which  have 
attracted  much  attention,  but  which  do  not  constitute 
a  masterpiece.  It  was  not  till  1782,  after  an  eclipse 
lasting  sixteen  years,  that  he  reappeared  on  the  literary 
horizon,  with  the  Set  of  Questions  which  so  upset  Cathe- 
rine's temper,  followed  by  another  comedy.  The  Minor ^ 
which  at  once  carried  him  to  the  very  front.  A  year 
after  he  was  abroad  again  ;  the  death  of  Panine,  the 
displeasure  of  the  Empress,  and  other  worries,  together 
with  his  own  dissipated  life,  had  ruined  his  health.  At 
forty  he  was  a  mere  wreck.  Paralysis  laid  its  hand  on 
him  ;  then,  in  1786,  he  planned  a  fresh  attempt  at  inde- 
pendent journalism,  was  checked  by  a  formal  veto  from 
the  censorship,  and  died  at  last  in  1792,  in  the  midst 
of  a  second  crisis  of  moral  prostration  and  religious 
fanaticism,  resembling  that  which  was  to  mark  the  last 
days  of  Gogol. 

Von  Visine's  talent  is  essentially  satirical.  Even  when 
he  was  a  student  at  the  Moscow  University,  his  witty 
sayings  won  him  constant  successes,  and  his  Brigadier 
may  be  taken  as  a  prelude  to  Gogol's  manner,  though 
with  much  less  art,  and  a  complete  absence  of  the  ideal. 
The  sense  of  his  satire  strikes  us  as  being  purely  negative. 
The  author  has  intended  to  demonstrate  the  fatal  effect 
of  French  habits  and  education,  but  he  overwhelms 
his  characters,  whether  representing  the  ancient  or  the 
modern  society,  whether  affected  by  this  education  or  not, 
with  an  equal  share  of  ridicule  for  their  moral  baseness. 


loo  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

The  Brigadier  himself,  a  type  of  the  old  school,  who 
reads  nothing  but  the  ^'  Military  Regulations/'  and  never 
thinks  of  anything  but  his  Uhine,  is  not  very  likely  to 
attract  much  sympathy.  The  figure  of  his  wife  places 
us  in  the  difficulty  of  not  knowing  whether  to  admire 
her  for  her  goodness  and  simplicity,  or  to  despise  her  for 
her  folly  and  stinginess.  The  character  placed  in  con- 
trast with  these  unattractive  types — Ivanouchka,  the 
Brigadier's  son,  brought  up  by  French  tutors — has  no 
solid  qualities  to  serve  as  background  to  his  ludicrous 
features.  The  intrigue  is  weak,  and  vulgar  farce  takes 
the  place  of  comic  power.  In  this  copy  of  seventeenth- 
century  models,  Holberg  and  Dryden,  Von  Visine  only 
contrives  to  give  the  impression  of  his  own  laborious 
search  after  coarse  effect,  and  a  revelation  of  a  condition 
of  easy  morals,  the  effect  of  which,  from  the  beneficial 
point  of  view,  is  hard  to  discover. 

The  Minor  follows  on  The  Brigadier^  just  as  the  second 
part  of  Dead  Souls  was  to  follow  on  its  predecessor,  as 
the  result  of  a  similar  effort  on  the  author's  part  to  fill 
up  the  void  caused  by  the  negative  system  which,  in  the 
first  instance,  they  both  employed.  In  this  second  play 
we  have,  besides  Mme.  Prostakova,  who  has  learnt  no- 
thing and  forgotten  nothing,  and  who  is  shocked  when 
she  hears  that  one  of  her  female  serfs  has  ventured, 
being  ill,  to  go  to  bed  ("  she  actually  has  the  impudence 
to  think  she  has  birth  ! ") ;  and  besides  her  son,  Mitro- 
fanouchka  (the  Minor),  who  has  gained  nothing  from  his 
coarse  and  stupid  tutors  except  an  absolute  absence  of 
the  moral  sense,  other  more  ideal  figures — Sofia,  a  young  / 
lady  intended  to  become  the  wife  of  Mitrofanouchka, 
but  who  reads  Pension's  book  on  education,  and  dreams 
of  a  very  different  kind  of  husband ;  her  uncle,  Staro- 


VON  VISINE  loi 

doume,  who  has  perused  the  Instructions  to  the  Legis- 
lative  Commissio7iy  and  absorbed  all  the  principles  therein 
contained  ;  and,  finally,  Pravdine,  the  good  tckinovik,  the 
representative  of  ^^enlightened  despotism,"  who  inter- 
venes at  the  close  of  the  play,  like  a  Deus  ex  inachindj 
to  clear  up  the  plot  and  put  everything  in  its  place. 
Unluckily,  while  in  The  Brigadier  we  were  left  to  choose 
between  two  equally  repulsive  realities,  our  choice  in 
The  Minor  must  be  made,  to  all  appearances,  between 
reality  and  fiction.  Mme.  Prostakova  and  her  son  are  crea- 
tures of  flesh  and  blood,  frequently  to  be  met  with  in  the 
society  of  that  day.  But  a  consultation  of  the  memoirs 
of  the  period  suffices  to  convince  us  of  the  unlikeli- 
hood of  the  existence  of  such  a  character  as  Sofia — not 
to  mention  the  young  lady's  insufferable  pedantry — or 
Pravdine,  a  model  functionary,  who  finds  himself  sorely 
puzzled  to  reconcile  his  ideas  with  his  tastes,  and  his 
attachment  to  the  good  old  times  with  his  enthusiasm 
for  the  Reform.  This  will  also  be  noticed  in  the  case 
of  Gogol's  heroes. 

As  regards  workmanship;  the  play  gives  proof  of  a 
more  thorough  study  of  the  Western  models,  and  hence 
it  somewhat  resembles  a  harlequin's  cloak.  The  geo^ 
graphical  examination,  during  which  Mitrofanouchka 
reveals  his  stupidity,  is  copied  from  Voltaire's  Jeannot  et 
Collin, 

The  ideas  expressed  by  Starodoume  belong  in  great 
measure  to  the  Nationalist  doctrines  of  that  period,  and 
have  much  in  common  with  those  of  the  modern  Slavo- 
phil theory.  The  view  taken  of  the  Western  world  is 
correspondingly  narrow  and  imperfect.  Von  Visine  him- 
self only  regarded  the  philosophical  current  of  his  time, 
which  both  attracted  and  alarmed  him,  as  a  corrupting 


I02  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

element,  and  quite  overlooked  the  principle  of  freedom 
it  involved.  Thus,  when  he  first  meets  it,  he  "  invokes 
every  text  in  the  Bible  to  exorcise  the  foreign  devil," 
as  Dostoievski  puts  it.  His  letters  from  France  betray 
this  mental  inclination,  and  the  determination  at  which 
he  had  already  arrived  to  set  up  a  new  sun,  to  rise  over 
the  Eastern  plains  in  opposition  to  the  setting  sun  of  the 
West.  ^^We  are  beginning.  They  are  near  their  end. 
To  us  belongs  the  future,  and  the  choice  of  a  form  of 
national  existence  appropriate  to  our  national  genius." 
Here  we  have  the  watchword  of  the  Akssakovs  and 
Khomiakovs  of  the  future.  As  a  traveller.  Von  Visine 
was  much  what  he  was  as  a  dramatist.  We  notice  the 
same  lack  of  direct  observation,  and  the  same  industrious 
effort  to  replace  this  want  by  easy  plagiarism.  His  criti- 
cisms of  and  invectives  against  French  society,  which 
have  been  admired  as  specimens  of  the  straightforward- 
ness and  clearsightedness  of  the  Russian  mind,  are  simply 
copied  from  Duclos'  Consider-ations  sur  les  Mceurs  du  Steele, 
from  Diderot's  Pensees  Philosophiques,  and  from  some  pam- 
phlets emanating  from  the  German  press  of  that  period. 

As  a  journalist.  Von  Visine  has  given  us  his  best  effort 
in  the  Set  of  QiiestionSy  to  which  Thave  already  referred. 
In  the  articles  prepared  for  the  newspaper,  the  publi- 
cation of  which  was  stopped  by  the  censor,  Starodoume 
reappears  on  the  scene,  full  of  nai've  astonishment  be- 
cause the  Instructions  to  the  Legislative  Commission  have 
not  resulted  in  the  framing  of  any  law.  The  future  had 
yet  other  surprises  in  store  for  him.  Even  in  this  depart- 
ment Von  Visine  was  an  incorrigible  imitator.  The 
letters  of  Dourikine,  which  he  intended  for  the  same 
newspaper,  may  be  found  word  for  word  in  the  works  of 
Rabener,  from  which  they  were  copied. 


LOUKINE  103 

The  success  of  The  Minor  was  stupendous.  After  the 
first  performance,  Patiomkine  called  out  to  the  author, 
^^  Die  now,  at  once  ! — or  never  wTite  again  !  "  Such  tri- 
umphs were  not  to  be  repeated  on  the  Russian  stage  for 
many  a  day. 

In  the  hands  of  Jakov  Borissovitch  Kniajnine  (1747- 
1791),  the  author  of  a  Dido  copied  from  Metastasio  and 
Lefranc  de  Perpignan,  and  of  some  pseudo-classic  works, 
such  as  Rosslav  and  Vadiin^  the  Russian  drama  fell 
back  into  the  rut  in  which  Soumarokov  had  run.  And 
indeed  Kniajnine  was  Soumarokov's  son-in-law.  Vadim 
attained  the  undeserved  honour  of  attracting  Catherine's 
displeasure.  The  play  celebrated  the  exploits  of  a  mili- 
tary leader  who  fought  with  Rurik  for  the  independence 
of  Novgorod.  Kniajnine's  comedies  are  mere  adapta- 
tions of  French  pieces. 

In  Chicaneryy  by  Vassili  lakovlevitch  Kapnist  (1757- 
1824),  a  piece  which  shared  the  ill-luck  of  Vadirn^  and 
could  not  be  presented  to  the  public  till  after  Catherine's 
death,  there  are  some  pleasing  features.  But  it  is 
not  so  much  a  play  as  a  pamphlet  in  dialogue,  contain- 
ing a  bold  and  violent  attack  against  the  judicial  circles 
of  the  day.  Paul  I.,  who  liked  violence  of  any  kind, 
authorised  its  performance,  and  considered  it  ^'  did  a 
public  service."  But  though  the  play  entertained  the 
public  vastly,  and  though  a  considerable  number  of  its 
lines,  which  lashed  the  members  of  the  national  magis- 
tracy severely,  have  become  proverbs,  history  does  not 
tell  us  that  a  bribe  the  less  has  passed  into  the  Russian 
magistrates'  hands  since  its  sensational  appearance. 

Far  more  interesting,  from  the  artistic  point  of  view, 
is  the  contemporary  attempt  of  Vladimir  Ignati£- 
viTCH  LOUKINE  (1757-1824)  to  accHmatise  '^middle-class 
8 


I04  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

comedy  "  in  Russia.  The  idea  might  well  seem  strange 
in  a  country  which,  at  that  time,  possessed  no  middle 
class  whatever.  But  this  effort  was  concerned  with  sub- 
ject rather  than  with  form,  and  especially  with  the  with- 
drawal of  the  classic  buskin,  and  the  continuation  of  that 
process  of  evolution  of  which  Richardson  had  been  the 
inaugurator,  and  Diderot  the  kindly  theorist.  With  these 
Loukine  also  associated  an  inkling  of  independent  lean- 
ings in  the  direction  of  the  Nationalist  movement.  He 
thought  it  desirable  that  a  man  of  the  people  should 
speak  from  the  stage  in  his  own  tongue,  and  not  in 
that  of  Racine  as  transposed  by  Soumarokov.  This 
view  he  ventured  to  express  in  his  prefaces,  prefixed, 
unluckily,  to  translations  and  adaptations  from  the 
French.  For  he  was  nothing  but  an  imitator,  after  all, 
^'  serving  up  Campistron,  Marivaux,  and  Beaumarchais 
in  the  Russian  style,"  as  Novikov  puts  it.  He  did  not 
know  how  to  put  his  own  theory  into  practice.  Though 
he  fought  with  the  holders  of  the  old  formulae,  he  never 
could  succeed  in  drawing  his  own  feet  out  of  their  shoes, 
and  he  suffered,  besides,  from  the  inferiority,  not  of  his 
talent — for  that,  on  both  sides,  was  poor  or  altogether 
lacking — but  of  his  social  status.  He  was  of  humble 
birth,  his  rank  in  the  official  hierarchy  was  modest,  and  in 
Russia,  until  quite  lately,  literature  has  been  an  essen- 
tially aristocratic  province. 

Loukine's  fate  strongly  resembled  that  of  Trediakovski, 
and  the  struggle  he  commenced  was  not  to  be  decided  in 
favour  of  his  views  until  the  appearance  of  Karamzine, 
who,  appealing  to  Lessing  and  Shakespeare,  succeeded 
in  introducing,  or  rather  reintroducing,  the  first  element 
of  realism,  the  germ  of  all  future  growth,  into  the  litera- 
ture of  his  country. 


DIERJAVINE  105 

Yet  this  essentially  national  and  popular  element  did 
contrive,  even  in  Catherine's  lifetime,  and  with  some 
slight  help  from  her,  to  make  its  appearance  on  the  stage 
under  another  form,  exceedingly  fashionable  at  that 
period — the  comic  opera.  Thus  labelled,  the  satirical 
spirit  of  the  race,  and  that  love  of  parody  which  in  all 
Russians,  as  in  Peter  the  Great  himself,  is  but  another 
form  of  the  critical  spirit,  gave  birth  to  a  succession  of 
works  closely  allied  with  the  type  produced  in  later  days 
by  Offenbach.  We  see  the  same  grotesque  and  facetious 
travesty  of  the  ancients,  the  same  light  and  cynical  opinion 
of  mankind,  the  same  kindly  and  sympathetic  glance, 
cast,  in  spite  of  all,  on  the  lower  strata  of  the  populace. 
The  whole  effect  is  confused.  Lessons  to  proprietors  on 
their  duties  to  their  serfs  are  mingled  with  the  defence 
of  serfdom  itself.  But  this  chaos  of  feeling  and  ideas 
obtains  in  all  the  literature  of  the  day.  Ablessimov 
(1724-1784)  was  for  many  years  the  favourite  writer  in 
this  line.  Dierjavine  himself  tried  his  hand  at  it,  but 
there  was  nothing  of  the  playwright  about  the  author  of 
Felitsa. 

The  glory  of  Dierjavine,  like  that  of  Lomonossov, 
met  with  varying  fortunes.  To-day  the  latter  is  held  the 
greatest  of  the  Russian  poets  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  full  justice  is  not  done  to  Lomonossov  unless  we 
also  class  him  among  men  of  science.  Until  the  advent 
of  Pouchkine,  that  great  demolisher  of  reputations,  Dier- 
javine's  importance  was  steadily  on  the  increase.  The 
words  ''great  poet"  were  pronounced  regardless  of 
chronology  and  comparison,  and  he  was  even  called 
''  a  god."  Pouchkine  fell  upon  the  idol,  and  Bielinski's 
assault  was  still  more  violent.  The  "god"  was  torn 
from  Olympus,  and  was  denied  even  the  title  of  ''  artist." 


io6  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

As  a  matter  of  truth,  he  was,  Hke  all  the  writers  of  his 
generation,  a  dilettantey  who  only  haunted  Parnassus 
from  time  to  time,  as  other  more  tempting  or  more 
lucrative  vocations — those  of  the  courtier  or  the  minis- 
terial functionary — permitted.  In  these  circles  he  has 
left  regrettable  memories,  which  have  served  as  weapons 
for  the  severity  of  his  posthumous  detractors.  The 
publication  of  his  Memoirs,  in  1857  (their  frankness 
is  great,  even  too  great),  cast  a  flood  of  light  on  this 
part  of  his  career,  and  darkened  the  shadow  that  already 
brooded  over  the  rest. 

Gabriel  Roman ovitch  Di£rjavine  (1743-18 16),  the 
scion  of  an  ancient  Tartar  family,  made  his  first  studies  at 
the  Gymnasium  of  Kazan,  where,  if  his  recollection  may 
be  depended  on,  *^  religion  was  taught  without  a  catechism, 
languages  without  grammar,  and  music  without  notes  ! " 
Yet  here  he  learnt  sufficient  German  to  enable  him  to 
go  through  a  complete  course  of  poets — Gellert,  Hage- 
dorn,  Heller,  Kleist,  Herder,  and  Klopstock  —  in  the 
original.  This  done,  and  his  general  studies  completed, 
he  entered  the  army,  like  everybody  else,  and  spent 
twelve  years  in  the  barracks  of  the  Preobrajenski  Regi- 
ment. 

His  Odes  to  Tchitalgat  (a  mountain  of  that  name), 
inspired  by,  or  even  translated  from,  Frederick  II.  (Fre- 
derick II.'s  verses  were  the  wretched  poet's  model!), 
an  Epistle  to  Michelsohn,  the  victor  of  Pougatchov, 
and  the  beginnings  of  an  epic  poem  entitled  The 
PougatchovchtchinUy  all  belong  to  this  period.  Follow- 
ing the  plan  drawn  up  by  Tatichtchev,  the  author  of 
these  efforts  passed  into  the  ranks  of  the  civil  em- 
ployes of  the  Government,  and  made  rough  draughts 
of  financial  regulations,  while  he  sang  the  charms  of 


DIERJAVINE  107 

Plenire,  a  fair  Portuguese  whose  happy  husband  he 
became.  In  1778  he  contributed  to  the  St.  Petersburg 
Messenger^  inserting  in  its  columns  two  rhymed  pane- 
gyrics of  Peter  the  Great,  an  epistle  to  Chouvalov,  and 
the  famous  Ode  to  Sovereigns,  which  was  later  to  earn 
him  the  reputation  of  a  Jacobin.  His  literary  reputa- 
tion was  not  established  until  the  publication,  in  1782,  of 
Felitsa — a  poem  founded  on  a  tale  by  Catherine  II.,  in 
which  a  good  fairy  of  that  name,  who  represents  Happi- 
ness, rewards  a  virtuous  young  prince.  This  good  fairy 
could  be  none  other  than  Catherine  herself.  Dierjavine 
hinted  the  fact,  and  was  rewarded  with  a  gold  snuff-box 
containing  five  hundred  ducats.  Soon  afterwards,  how- 
ever, Felitsa  invited  the  poet  to  retire  from  the  adminis- 
trative career,  wherein  he  did  not  show  sufficient  docility. 
*'  Let  him  write  verses  ! "  He  wrote  them  for  Zoubov 
and  for  Patiomkine,  the  rival  favourites,  and  by  this 
shady  device  contrived  to  gain  forgiveness,  and  even  to 
enter  the  sovereign's  intimate  circle  as  her  private  sec- 
retary. But  one  day,  as  he  was  working  with  her,  the 
second  secretary,  Popov,  was  called  in. 

*^  Remain  here  ;  this  gentleman  is  too  free  with  his 
hands." 

Zoubov  and  Patiomkine  sufficed  Catherine  at  the 
moment.  Yet  she  forgave  him,  but  fancied  such  an  act 
of  clemency  deserved  another  laudatory  poem.  None 
came.  On  close  acquaintance,  Felitsa  ceased  to  inspire 
the  poet.  They  parted,  and  Dierjavine,  banished  to  the 
Senate,  climbed  the  slippery  slope  no  more,  until  the  days 
of  Paul  and  Alexander  I.  He  had  grown  wise.  The 
man  who  had  been  called  a  Jacobin,  the  apologist  of  the 
humanitarian  ideas  attributed  to  ^^  Felitsa,"  President  of 
the  College  of  Commerce  in  1800,  Minister  of  Justice  in 


J 


1 08  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

1802,  sent  forth  verses  against  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
serfs,  and  succeeded,  in  1803,  in  getting  himself  dismissed 
as  a  ^^reactionary  "  !  He  spent  the  last  thirteen  years  of 
his  life  on  his  own  property  of  Zvanka,  where  he  wrote 
his  Memoirs,  and,  when  more  than  sixty  years  of  age, 
turned  his  attention  to  the  stage.  In  181 1  he  founded, 
at  St.  Petersburg,  in  conjunction  with  A.  S.  Chichkov, 
the  ^'Society  of  Friends  of  the  Russian  Tongue,"  which 
in  itself  was  an  attempt  to  react  against  the  new  literary 
tendencies,  represented  by  Karamzine  and  Joukovski. 
He  is  said  to  have  realised  the  inanity  of  this  attempt 
before  he  died.  On  the  8th  of  January  1815,  at  a  public 
gathering  at  the  College  of  Tsarskoie-Sielo,  he  heard  one 
of  the  pupils  read  some  verses  of  his  own  composition. 
He  congratulated  the  young  author,  and  sighed,  "  My 
day  is  past  I "  The  pupil's  name  was  Pouchkine.  I 
greatly  fear  the  story  must  be  ascribed  to  some  accom- 
modating flight  of  the  imagination,  for  when  we  read 
the  verses  in  question,  we  find  that  they  contain  a 
lofty  eulogy  of  Catherine  II.,  her  grandson,  and  of  Dier- 
javine  himself.  The  workmanship  is  in  Dierjavine's 
own  style,  and  nothing  about  it  betokens  the  future 
author  of  Eugene  Onieguine, 

In  Catherine's  time  poetry  was  not — it  has  scarcely 
been,  even  up  to  the  present  day,  in  Russia — what 
other  conditions  of  existence  have  made  it  in  other 
countries — the  natural  blossoming  of  the  national  life,  a 
delight,  an  ornament.  In  its  origin  especially,  it  was  a 
weapon  of  attack  and  defence,  which  some  chosen 
spirits  took  up  against  the  calamities  of  the  common  life. 
Thus  it  is  that  satire  is  the  dominant  note,  that  com- 
plaint runs  through  and  pervades  its  every  accent,  that 
the  gloomiest  pessimism  underlies  it  all.     And  even  this 


DIfiRJAVINE  109 

need  not  have  prevented  Dierjavine  from  becoming  a 
great  poet.  But  he  was,  above  all  things,  a  man  of 
his  own  time.  His  work  is  like  a  mirror,  wherein  we 
see  every  aspect  and  every  phase  of  Catherine's  reign 
reflected.  This  being  so,  it  gives  us  an  equal  proportion 
of  patches  of  light  and  pools  of  darkness,  much  spirit, 
a  certain  dignity,  no  personal  feeling  for  beauty,  and 
no  moral  sense  whatever.  Dierjavine  only  saw  beauty 
through  other  men's  eyes,  and  frequently  lost  sight  of 
goodness  altogether.  Now  and  then  his  voice  rings  with 
an  accent  of  dignity,  but  he  always  produces  the  sen- 
sation that  we  are  listening  to  a  well-conned  lesson. 
Oftener  yet  his  muse  seems  to  have  wandered  into  evil 
resorts,  where  degradation  of  character  is  swiftly  followed 
by  debauch  of  talent. 

Until  he  wrote  Felitsa^  he  remained  the  pupil  of 
Trediakovski  and  the  imitator  of  Lomonossov.  But 
this  last  author  towered  far  above  the  stature  of  his  imi- 
tator's talent.  Dierjavine  had  the  sense  to  acknowledge 
it,  and,  advised  by  some  of  his  friends,  he  condescended 
to  Anacreon,  taking  Horace  and  Ossian  on  his  w^ay.  He 
knew  neither  Latin,  Greek,  nor  English.  His  friends, 
Lvov,  Kapnist,  and  Dmitriev,  more  educated,  though 
less  gifted,  than  himself,  set  themselves  to  overcome 
this  difficulty.  Their  assistance  even  extended  to  very 
copious  corrections,  which  may  still  be  traced  on  the 
poet's  manuscripts. 

Felitsa,  like  most  of  his  poems,  is  a  mixture  of  satire 
and  ode.  Catherine  is  extolled,  contemporary  habits  are 
criticised.  The  general  tone  betrays  the  humourist. 
The  goddess  of  Happiness  descends  from  heaven  and 
becomes  a  Tartar  princess,  whose  virtues  are  sung  by  a 
murza.      This  tmirza^  who  reappears  in   another  poem 


no  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

{The  Vision  of  the  Murza^  1783),  was,  we  are  told,  sin- 
cere. Was  this  still  true  when,  at  a  later  date,  he  lauded 
the  exploits  of  ^'the  Russian  Mars"  (Patiomkine)  and  of 
Zoubov?  It  would  be  hardly  safe,  indeed,  to  seek  the 
origin  of  this  personage  on  the  Russian  steppe.  I  think 
we  are  more  likely  to  find  it  in  two  numbers  of  the 
Spectator  (159  and  604),  where,  under  the  same  title, 
The  Vision  of  Mirza,  Addison  has  used  the  same  allegory 
to  convey  an  identical  idea, — the  luminous  transparence 
of  life  under  the  light  of  the  imagination. 

In  the  Odes  on  the  Capture  of  Warsaw  (1794)  and  the 
poems  dealing  with  Souvarov's  exploits  in  Italy,  the 
imitation  of  Ossian  is  closer  yet.  In  fact,  the  poet  ^'  of 
the  clouds  and  seas"  is  actually  mentioned  by  name. 
At  the  same  time  we  perceive  a  progressive  accentuation 
of  the  note  of  melancholy  philosophy  and  philosophic 
moralising,  of  the  inclination  to  ponder  on  the  mysteri- 
ous depths  of  human  existence,  of  longings  for  a  higher 
ideal  of  greatness  and  happiness,  of  meditation  on  death 
and  eternity,  and  appeals  to  truth,  justice,  and  good- 
ness. This  is  the  dominant  tone  in  the  Epistles  ad- 
dressed to  his  early  and  life-long  friends  Lvov,  Kapnist, 
Chouvalov,  Narychkine,  and  Khrapovitski.  Taking  his 
work  as  a  whole,  a  poetic  festival  at  which  the  mock 
Scottish  bard  thus  elbows  Horace,  Anacreon  really  rules 
the  feast,  and  Diogenes,  screened  by  Epicurus,  often 
makes  himself  far  too  much  at  home. 

In  the  dramatic  efforts  which  Dierjavine  sent  forth  at 
the  very  end  of  his  life,  his  views  were  of  the  most  ambi- 
tious nature.  He  dreamt  of  a  theatre  which  should  be  a 
school  like  that  of  Greece,  and  he  claimed  to  establish 
it  on  a  wide  popular  basis,  drawn  alike  from  the  history 
and  the  poetry  of  the  nation.     The  publication,  in  1804, 


DIERJAVINE  III 

of  a  collection  of  Bylines  by  Klioutcharev  inspired  him 
to  the  composition  of  a  Dobrynia,  in  the  fourth  act  of 
which  he  introduced  a  chorus  of  young  Russian  girls. 
At  the  same  time,  to  the  great  scandal  of  the  **  Society 
of  Friends  of  the  Russian  Tongue,"  the  veteran  poet,  like 
Joukovski,  went  so  far  as  to  compose  ballads  on  popular 
subjects.  But  his  heart  was  with  the  classics,  and  he 
did  not  withstand  the  temptation  to  clap  a  mask,  bor- 
rowed from  Corneille,  upon  his  Dobjynia,  and  so  dis- 
figure the  character  completely.  But  indeed,  as  I  have 
already  said,  he  had  no  scenic  talent. 

Still,  when  Pouchkine  denies  him,  generally  and 
absolutely,  every  artistic  gift,  he  goes  too  far.  The  ex- 
grenadier's  language  gives  him  a  splendid  opening. 
"  Dierjavine,"  he  writes,  "knew  nothing  either  of  the 
grammar  or  the  spirit  of  the  Russian  tongue  (in  this  he 
was  inferior  to  Lomonossov);  he  had  no  idea  of  style  nor 
harmony,  nor  even  of  the  rules  of  versification.  .  .  . 
Reading  his  work,  you  would  think  you  were  read- 
ing a  bad  translation  of  an  uncouth  original.  Truly  his 
mind  worked  in  Tartar,  and  never  had  time  to  learn  to 
write  Russian  "  (Letters  to  Baron  Delwig). 

I  feel  a  natural  shyness  about  contradicting  such  an 
authority.  Yet  the  "Tartar's"  language  strikes  me,  in 
places,  at  all  events,  as  being  very  expressive,  plastic,  and 
powerful,  if  not  exceedingly  correct.  His  verse,  though 
less  full  than  Lomonossov's,  has  more  simplicity,  more  ~1 
freedom,  much  greater  flexibility,  and,  in  the  use  of  the  new 
metres,  which  broke  the  old  classic  uniformity,  a  fertility  ^ 
of  resource  by  which  Pouchkine  himself  appears  to  me 
to  have  profited.  I  believe  that  the  man  himself,  the 
tchinovniky  the  courtier,  has  compromised  the  poet's  cause 
in  the  eyes  of  this  judge. 


112  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

In  the  department  of  lyric  poetry,  Dierjavine  has  had 
a  host  of  imitators,  most  of  them  forgotten  at  the  present 
day,  such  as  Kostrov  (lermiel  Ivanovitch,  died  1796), 
Petrov  (VassiU  Petrovitch,  died  1800),  an  imitator  of 
Addison,  and,  as  a  result  of  five  years  spent  in  England 
while  translating  Milton's  Paradise  Lostj  a  fervent  ad- 
mirer of  English  poetry.  The  bard  of  Felitsa  wrote 
no  epic,  though  the  whole  of  his  literary  work  may  be 
regarded  as  an  historical  evocation  of  Catherine's  reign. 
He  left  the  honour  of  following  in  Homer's  footsteps  to 
Kheraskov. 

If  we  desired,  with  a  view  to  comparative  study,  to 
possess  a  map  whereon  the  style  of  the  Iliad^  that  of 
the  Alneidy  that  of  Jerusalem  Delivered,  and  possibly 
of  the  Henriade  as  well,  are  set  forth  side  by  side,  with- 
out the  employment  of  the  smallest  artifice  likely  to 
result  in  their  confusion,  w^e  could  do  no  better  than 
to  glance  at  the  Rossiad  or  the  Vladimir  of  Michael 
Matvi£i£vitch  Kh£raskov  (1733-1807). 

This  poet  has  conscientiously  made  his  zephyrs  blow 
and  his  dryads  weep  in  the  forests  round  Kazan,  and 
industriously  amalgamated  the  features  of  Agamemnon 
and  Godefroi  de  Bouillon  in  the  person  of  Ivan  the 
Terrible.  The  Rossiad  is  a  history  of  the  conquest 
of  Kazan,  with  which  the  writer  has  connected  the 
more  modern  enterprises  of  Catherine's  reign,  and  to 
this  bond  a  great  proportion  of  its  success  was  due. 
Kheraskov  was  a  scholar,  an  academic  student,  who  had 
strayed  into  the  domain  of  poetry.  He  had  been  a 
soldier  (he  belonged  to  an  old  Wallachian  family), 
curator  of  the  Moscow  University,  and  director  of  the 
theatre  of  that  city,  and  wielded  considerable  literary 
influence  by   means  of   two   periodical    publications,  to 


NOVELS  1 1 3 

which  the  best  writers  of  the  time  contributed.  In 
1775  he  became  a  Freemason  and  supported  the  propa- 
ganda of  Novikov  and  his  German  master,  Schwartz, 
obtaining  a  professorial  chair  for  the  first,  and  farming- 
the  printing  of  the  University  to  the  second.  His  epic 
poems  have  a  strong  flavour  of  mysticism.  In  the 
Rossiad  there  is  a  struggle  between  good  and  evil ; 
in  Vladimir^  a  struggle  between  Pagan  instincts  and 
Christian  faith,  with,  here  and  there,  a  victory  won  by 
the  better  element,  thanks  to  the  intervention  of  occult 
forces,  less  connected  with  the  Gospel  than  with  the 
Kabala,  which  put  forw^ard  in  the  most  unevangelical 
fashion,  and  on  the  esoteric  principle  of  the  opposing  of 
evil  by  evil,  the  struggle  of  lie  against  lie,  working  out 
the  final  triumph  of  truth  and  virtue. 

Those  who  have  the  curiosity  to  look  will  find  the 
same  ideas  and  tendencies  in  numerous  novels  by  Khera- 
skov,  imitated  from  Fenelon  and  Marmontel.  They  are 
also  to  be  observed,  in  a  generalised  and  popularised 
form,  in  the  strange  application  by  other  contemporary 
Russian  writers  of  their  studies  of  the  sensualist  novels 
imported  from  France.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
in  Russia  Gogol  was  destined  to  be  taken  for  an  imitator 
of  Paul  de  Kock  !  These  Russian  adapters  accept  these 
novels  as  satires,  and  superadd  a  moral  intention.  Thus 
we  see  Tchoulkov  and  Ismailov  making  astonishingly 
realistic  attempts  to  Russify  the  popular  type  of  Faublas. 

Richardson's  novels  also  found  many  Russian  readers, 
and  some  few  imitators,  at  this  period.  Among  these 
last  was  Fiodor  Emine,  author  of  the  Adventures  of 
Miramondy  which  some  have  taken  to  be  an  autobio- 
graphy. Miramond  is  a  sort  of  Telemachus,  travelling 
under  the  care  of  a  mentor,  a  near  relation,  it  would 


114  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

seem,  of  the  author's.  The  journey  is  an  eventful  one ; 
master  and  pupil  find  it  hard  to  agree,  and  the  internal 
discord  which  is  the  general  and  characteristic  feature 
of  contemporary  literature  becomes  very  evident.  The 
strife  and  distressing  contradiction  between  what  the 
WTiter  has  culled  from  every  foreign  hand,  and  what  he 
desires  to  retain  of  his  own  native  possessions,  is  still 
more  visible  in  the  Douchenka  (*^  Little  Psyche  ")  by  Hyp- 
politus  Fiodorovitch  Bogdanovitch  (1743-1803),  a  poem 
which  made  a  tremendous  stir  at  the  time  of  its  appear- 
ance, and  had  the  honour,  at  a  later  period,  of  inspiring 
one  of  Pouchkine's  first  poetic  efforts. 

The  Douchenka  proves,  on  a  closer  examination,  to  be 
nothing  but  a  versified  adaptation  of  the  "Amours  de 
Psyche  et  de  Cupidon "  of  La  Fontaine,  who,  as  we 
know,  borrowed  his  subject  from  '^The  Golden  Ass"  of 
Apuleius.  To  this  Bogdanovitch  has  merely  added  a 
few  episodes  of  revolting  obscenity,  together  with  a  cer- 
tain personal  sentiment  in  his  conception  of  Psyche. 
Douchenka  is  a  depraved  and  vulgar  flirt,  to  whom 
Zeus  consents  to  restore  her  physical  loveliness  for  the 
sake  of  the  beauty  of  a  soul  which  charms  him,  even  as 
it  is,  and  does  not  appear  to  be  without  charm  in  the 
poet's  eyes.  Bogdanovitch  lived  on  intimate  terms  with 
Kheraskov,  Novikov,  and  Schwartz.  Vassili  Ivanovitch 
Maikov  (1728-1778),  who,  writing  in  the  same  heroi- 
comic  style,  has  descended  to  indecent  parody,  was 
also  a  member  of  this  circle.  His  lelssei  (or  ''Angry 
Bacchus  ")  is  a  mere  piece  of  filthiness. 

La  Fontaine  had  a  better  pupil  in  the  person  of 
Ivan  Ivanovitch  Khemnitzer  (1745-1784),  the  first  of  the 
Russian  fabulists,  if  the  fables  of  Kantemir  and  Sou- 
marokov  are   taken   for  what   they  really  are  —  satires. 


FOREIGN   INFLUENCES  115 

This  foreigner — he  came  of  a  German  family,  probably 
belonging  to  Chemnitz,  in  Silesia,  who  wrote  German 
verses  in  his  youth,  and  developed  into  a  mere  dilettante 
in  Russian  literature  in  his  riper  age  (he  was  Consul- 
General  at  Smyrna  when  he  died) — shared  his  French 
master's  peculiarities,  his  almost  childish  nature,  his 
shrewd  intelligence,  and  his  simple  good-heartedness. 

Simpler,  less  of  an  artist  than  La  Fontaine,  less  senti- 
mental than  Gellert,  he  is  almost  the  only  Russian  fable- 
writer  w^ho  possesses  a  touch  of  originality. 

Foreign  literature  was  at  that  time  rolling  into  1 
Russia  like  the  flood  after  a  storm,  in  foam-flecked 
waves,  W'hich  stirred  the  mud  upon  the  soil  beneath, 
and  hollowed  out  great  pits  upon  its  surface.  From  j 
the  year  1768  onwards,  Catherine  allotted  5000  roubles  1 
yearly  from  her  privy  purse,  for  translations  from  foreign 
languages.  She  put  a  hand  to  the  work  herself,  in  a  ^ 
translation  of  Marmontel's  Belisaire^  and  Von  Visine, 
Kniajnine,  and  Kheraskov  shared  the  labour.  A  per- 
manent committee  of  translators  sat  at  the  Academy 
of  Sciences.  Various  societies  were  formed  for  the 
same  purpose.  Rekhmaninov,  a  land-owner  in  the 
Government  of  Tambov,  translated  and  published  the 
works  of  Voltaire.  The  director  of  the  College  of  Kazan, 
Verevkine,  undertook  the  whole  of  Diderot's  Encyclo- 
pcedia,  Russian  extracts  from  French  authors,  The 
Spirit  of  Voltaire,  of  Rousseau,  of  Helvetius,  had  a  large 
circulation.  This  propaganda  had  no  political  effect, 
and  its  humanitarian  value  strikes  us,  at  this  distance 
of  time,  as  utterly  insignificant.  The  very  noblemen  who 
crow^ded  to  pay  their  court  at  Ferney,  and  pressed  their 
own  hospitality  on  Rousseau,  protested  against  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  serfs,  prematurely  proposed  by 


ii6  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

two  members  of  the  ^'  Legislative  Commission,"  Korovine 
and  Protassov.  The  negative  side  of  French  philo- 
sophy, its  religious  scepticism,  was  the  only  real  attrac- 
tion it  held  for  them.  This  involved  no  sacrifice  on 
their  part.  At  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  no- 
thing in  the  political  and  social  organisation  of  Russia 
had  changed,  but  the  country  swarmed  with  free-thinkers, 
and  this  state  of  mind  brought  about  a  natural  reaction, 
a  sudden  swelling  of  the  mystic  current  which  accident 
had  momentarily  driven  into  the  muddy  bed  of  local 
Freemasonry.  Radichtchev  and  Novikov  personified 
these  two  phases  of  the  intellectual  life  of  the  period. 

Born  of  a  noble  family,  and  educated  in  the  Pages' 
School,  Alexander  Nikolai£vitch  Radichtchev  (1749- 
1802)  is  a  typical  though  somewhat  eccentric  specimen 
of  a  generation  of  well-born  men,  who  drank  from 
the  goblet  of  philosophy,  and  turned  giddy  in  conse- 
quence. At  Leipzig  he  spent  four  years.  While  lend- 
ing an  inattentive  ear  to  the  instructions  of  Gellert 
and  Platner,  he  was  applying  his  whole  strength  to  the 
study  of  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  Helvetius,  and  Mably.  After 
his  return  to  Russia,  a  perusal  of  the  Abbe  Raynal's 
Histoire  des  Indes  and  of  Sterne's  Sentimental  Journey 
threw  him  into  a  state  of  violent  excitement,  wherein 
good  judges,  Pouchkine  among  the  number,  have 
thought  they  perceived  symptoms  of  madness.  His 
Journey  to  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow y  published  in  1790, 
was  the  expression  of  these  feelings.  The  author  has 
borrowed  the  general  form  of  his  narrative,  and  even 
some  characteristic  episodes — such  as  that  of  the  monk 
of  Calais,  easily  recognised  under  the  lineaments  of  a 
philosophic  church  chorister — from  Sterne.  From  Vol- 
taire  he   draws  his  libertine  scepticism,   his    hatred   of 


RADICHTCHEV  117 

fanaticism,  and  scorn  of  prejudice.  His  philanthropy 
comes  from  Rousseau  and  Raynal ;  his  cynicism  from 
Diderot.  If  to  these  we  add,  and  reconcile  as  best 
we  may,  his  professions  of  orthodoxy,  joined  to  tirades 
against  the  priests  and  their  never-ending  impositions  on 
human  credulity,  and  his  apologies  for  autocratic  power 
followed  by  revolutionary  outpourings,  we  obtain  a  com- 
plete idea  of  the  book. 

Radichtchev  goes  farther  than  Voltaire  and  Rousseau. 
He  would  grant  the  freed  serfs  the  ownership  of  the  soil 
they  till,  but  he  leaves  the  carrying  out  of  this  reform  to 
the  Sanwdierjaviey  and,  except  in  the  matter  of  date,  he 
proves  himself  a  true  prophet.  He  shows  a  great  deal  of 
sympathy  for  the  lower  classes,  declaring  his  conviction 
that  their  morality  is  higher  than  that  of  their  superiors  ; 
but  this  does  not  prevent  him  from  expressing  astonish- 
ment when  a  peasant  woman  is  faithful  to  her  word.  Such 
a  case,  he  avers,  is  rare  in  that  class.  He  is  full  of  contra- 
dictions, and  the  object  to  be  attained  never  seems  to 
be  clear  before  his  mind.  But  had  he  really  any  object 
at  all  ?  He  cannot  have  believed  that  Catherine  would 
permit  the  circulation  of  his  treatise  in  the  year  1790. 
The  days  of  her  dalliance  with  philosophy  were  long  gone 
by.  She  might  have  suppressed  the  book  without  touch- 
ing the  writer,  who  was,  as  he  afterwards  proved  him- 
self, harmless  enough.  But  the  widow  of  Peter  III.,  a 
very  woman  at  times,  in  spite  of  her  fondness  for  being 
called  Catherine  the  Great,  crushed  this  fly  with  a  sledge- 
hammer. Radichtchev  spent  ten  years  in  Siberia,  where 
he  employed  his  time,  after  permission  to  write  had  been 
restored  to  him,  in  composing  another  work,  filled  with 
quotations  from  Locke,  Newton,  and  Rousseau,  entitled 
On  MaUy  on  Deaths  and  Immortality^  and  which  might 


ii8  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

surely  have  sufficed  to  mollify  the  sovereign.  He  was 
recalled  to  Russia  by  Paul  I.,  and  Alexander  I.  appointed 
him  to  a  new  Commission  on  Legislation,  for  which  he 
drew  up  a  plan  of  judicial  reform,  embodying  trial  by 
jury.  It  was  his  fate  to  be  always  either  before  or  be- 
hind his  time.  Zavadovski,  president  of  the  commis- 
sion, inquired  with  a  savage  smile,  whether  he  pined  for 
the  Siberian  landscape.  The  unhappy  man,  whose  ima- 
gination was  overwrought,  and  whose  nerves  had  not 
recovered  from  his  past  sufferings,  lost  his  head.  He 
went  home  and  poisoned  himself  (September  2,  1802) 
by  swallowing  a  huge  glass  of  alcohol  at  a  draught. 

He  had  wielded  no  influence.  When  he  was  sent  to 
Siberia,  hardly  any  one  noticed  the  disappearance  of  the 
humble  Custom-House  employe.  His  work  had  lain  in 
those  regions.  His  departure  made  no  more  stir  than 
a  stone  when  it  falls  into  the  water.  Pouchkine  was 
to  pass  through  a  short  period  of  youthful  infatuation 
and  enthusiasm  for  the  Journey.  On  cooler  reflection,  he 
compared  the  work  to  a  broken  mirror,  which  deforms 
everything  it  reflects.  He  made  reservations  as  to  its 
substance,  and  applied  harsh  judgments  to  its  form, 
which  was  perhaps  superfluous.  Radichtchev  did  not 
know  how  to  write,  and  had  never  given  himself  time  to 
learn  to  think.  He  was  always  a  diiettantCy  and  a  man  of 
ill-balanced  intellect,  quite  unfit  to  perform  the  work  of 
an  apostle. 

A  genuine  apostle,  with  all  the  faults  and  all  the 
virtues  of  his  office,  was  Nicholas  Ivanovitch  Novikov 
(1744-1818).  He  was  a  born  preacher.  He  began  by 
preaching  a  crusade  against  the  enslavement  of  the 
national  intellect  by  its  Western  teachers.  But  he  met 
the  fate  which  was  inevitably  to  overtake  the  members 


NOVIKOV  119 

of  the  extreme  Nationalist  party.  His  absolute  and 
vehement  denial  of  the  existence  of  any  loan  borrowed 
from  a  foreign  source  led  him,  by  way  of  the  clear  sheet 
he  insisted  on,  to  utter  vacancy.  He  took  alarm,  and 
retired  for  refuge  into  religious  mysticism,  without  caring 
this  time  to  inquire  whether  the  edifice  which  sheltered 
him  had  been  built  by  foreign  hands  or  not.  At  the 
same  time  he  realised  that  before  Russia  could  possess 
any  original  culture,  the  national  soil  must  be  stirred  to 
its  very  depths.  Under  the  influence  of  this  idea,  the 
theorist  in  Novikov  made  way  for  the  man  of  action, 
the  publisher  bowed  before  the  educator,  and  thus  began 
the  finest  period  of  a  career  w^hich,  if  it  had  lasted  longer, 
might  have  advanced  the  progress  of  a  work  which 
is  still  in  its  preliminary  stage,  by  a  good  half-century. 
But  Novikov  was  stopped  half-way.  I  wdll  endeavour 
to  sum  up  his  history ;  it  was  full  of  incident,  and  much 
of  it  is  still  obscure. 

I  have  already  described  the  early  disagreement 
between  the  editor  of  the  Drone  and  Catherine  II. 
Novikov,  a  man  of  noble  birth,  like  Radichtchev,  had 
previously  served  in  the  army,  and  had  acted  as  Secretary 
to  the  Commission  of  Legislation.  In  1769,  journalism 
began  to  attract,  and  soon  entirely  absorbed  him.  The 
Russian  periodical  press  of  Elizabeth's  time,  although 
modelled  on  that  of  England,  France,  and  Germany, 
preserved  an  officially  academic  character,  which  con- 
lined  it  exclusively  to  literary  and  scientific  subjects. 
Catherine  cast  it  headlong  into  the  social  and  political 
vortex.  The  first  blows  exchanged  between  these  inex- 
perienced warriors  missed  their  aim.  With  arms  bor- 
rowed from  Addison  and  Steele,  they  fought  against 
windmills — I  mean  for  or  against  men  and  things  who 
9 


120  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

belonged  to  a  foreign  and  absent  community.  If,  taking 
Catherine's  Miscellanies^  we  look  closely  at  the  list  of 
prejudices  to  be  eradicated  in  the  Zainoskvorietchie  (a 
suburb  of  the  ancient  capital,  beyond  the  Moskva),  we 
shall  find  it  a  hastily  arranged  plagiarism  on  the  Spec- 
tator^ wherein  the  embroidery  swears  with  the  canvas 
of  its  foundation.  Novikov  was  the  first  to  touch  the 
raw  place.  In  his  Drone  (1769-1770)  he  attacked  actual 
and  surrounding  realities,  official  venality,  judicial  cor- 
ruption, the  general  demoralisation.  His  hand  was 
heavy,  his  drawing  coarse.  '^A  Russian  sucking-pig, 
who  has  travelled  through  foreign  countries  to  improve 
his  mind,  is  generally  no  more  than  a  full-grown  pig 
when  he  comes  home."  His  blows  fell  in  such  a  pitiless 
shower  that  Catherine  thought  it  time  to  interfere.  As 
soon  as  the  game  grew  earnest,  it  ceased  to  entertain 
her  ;  and  besides,  Novikov  forgot  to  spare  the  sovereign's 
friends  the  philosophers,  whom  she  still  regarded  with 
affection.  When  he  tested  their  doctrines  by  his  own 
half-savage  common-sense,  he  made  discoveries  which 
were  very  annoying  to  Voltaire's  imperial  pupil.  A  truce 
was  commanded ;  and  that  over,  the  fight,  favoured  by 
fresh  intermissions  in  the  Tsarina's  liberalism,  went  on 
from  1769  to  1774,  supported  on  each  side  by  an  almost 
equal  number  of  combatants,  some  of  whom,  indeed, 
frequently  passed  over  from  one  camp  to  the  other. 
The  whole  of  this  satirical  press,  the  literary  vassal  of 
the  Tatler  and  Spectator^  was  swept  in  one  direction 
by  the  same  insurrectionary  tendency.  Just  as  in  Eng- 
land there  was  a  general  uprising  against  Pope  and 
Dryden,  so  in  Russia  there  was  a  revolt  against  Gallo- 
mania and  French  classicism,  and  in  this  matter  both 
parties  stood  on  common  ground.     After  1774  there  was 


NOVIKOV  121 

another  truce,  for  which  Novikov  himself  was  respon- 
sible. He  was  passing  through  the  mental  convulsion 
to  which  I  have  already  adverted.  In  the  last  numbers 
of  7'he Purse  {Kochelek)hQ  had  reached  practical  Nihilism. 
Happily  Schwartz  stood  close  beside  him,  ready  to  hold 
out  the  hand  which  saved  him  at  the  very  edge  of  the 
abyss. 

The  introduction  of  Freemasonry  into  Russia  dates 
from  the  time  of  Elizabeth,  but  the  first  Grand  Lodge 
was  not  opened  in  St.  Petersburg  until  1772.  It  was 
connected  with  the  Scottish  Masons,  and  the  rites  fol- 
lowed the  Scottish  form,  the  simplest  and  purest  of  all. 
Schwartz  introduced  Continental  forms,  which,  though 
stained  with  illuminism  and  charlatanism,  were  better 
suited,  by  their  mystic  tendency,  to  the  bent  of  the  Rus- 
sian nation.  Novikov  had  been  affiliated  to  the  English 
brotherhood  since  1772,  and  its  influence  had  already 
directed  him  into  that  path  of  fruitful  activity  which  has 
rendered  him  the  most  meritorious  toiler  of  an  epoch 
the  relative  value  of  the  workers  in  which  has  not  yet 
been  fairly  apportioned.  He  had  made  some  attempts 
to  popularise  knowledge,  had  published  an  Historical 
Lexicon  of  Russian  Writers^  a  Russian  Hydrography y  and, 
under  the  title  oi  An  Ancient  Russian  Library ^  a  col- 
lection of  historical  documents.  Schwartz,  whose  ac- 
quaintance he  made  in  1779,  after  his  removal  from  St. 
Petersburg  to  Moscow,  was  the  very  guide  needed  to 
draw  out  his  best  efforts  and  full  powers  in  this  direc- 
tion. The  spark  which  fires  all  grand  enthusiasms  was 
kindled  in  the  Russian's  breast  by  the  enthusiastic  Ger- 
man dreamer. 

Of  a  sudden,  Novikov  began  to  found  schools,  print- 
ing-works, and  bookshops,  and  to  disseminate  religious 


122  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

handbooks.  He  was  a  forerunner  of  Tolstoi',  and  more 
practical  than  he,  for  hospitals  and  dispensaries  were  in- 
cluded in  his  programme.  At  the  same  time  he  managed 
the  Moscow  Gazette j  and  saw  its  subscribers  increase  from 
600  to  4000.  In  1782  he  founded  the  ^'Society  of  the 
Friends  of  Learning,"  which,  taking  advantage  of  the 
short  period  of  literary  freedom,  inaugurated  in  1783 
by  a  ukase  soon  to  be  rescinded,  was  transformed,  two 
years  later,  into  the  '*  Typographical  Society."  There 
were  swarms  of  printing-presses  at  Moscow,  and 
Novikov  used  them  to  produce  an  enormous  mass  of 
pamphlets,  which  inculcated  his  new  tenets  :  the  possi- 
bility of  agreement  between  faith  and  reason,  between 
intelligence  and  sentiment,  the  necessity  of  agreement 
between  religion  and  instruction.  To  this  anything  but 
original  doctrine  he  added  some  bold  and  novel  ideas 
of  his  own,  proclaiming,  amongst  other  things,  the  right 
of  the  weaker  sex  to  a  superior  education.  His  own 
belief,  as  a  whole,  always  lacked  clearness  and  con- 
sistency, while  his  brother-masons,  among  whom  Ivan 
Vladimirovitch  Lapoukhine  (1756-1816)  was  the  most 
remarkable,  lost  themselves  in  a  heavy  fog  of  theo- 
sophic  fancies  and  obscure,  though  artistic,  allegories. 
Yet,  taken  altogether,  they  did  introduce  a  vivifying  and 
healthy  principle  of  self-examination,  mental  effort,  and 
independence,  into  the  national  existence. 

Catherine  herself  encouraged  their  exertions,  until 
the  day  when  she  fancied  she  perceived  a  mysterious 
correspondence  between  them  and  the  revolutionary 
movement  beyond  her  borders.  It  was  a  grievous  and 
unpardonable  mistake  in  a  woman  who  piqued  her- 
self on  her  clear-sightedness.  The  Freemasonry  of 
that  period,  essentially  international  here  as  elsewhere, 


NOVIKOV  123 

assumed  in  Russia  a  frankly  reactionary  character,  the 
fervent  pietism  of  its  members  driving  it  in  exactly 
the  opposite  direction  to  the  philosophic  and  humani- 
tarian current  which  was  to  bring  about  the  Revolu- 
tion. Catherine,  who  was  quite  at  her  ease,  and  sure 
of  her  way  amidst  the  shabby  windings  of  ministerial 
chanceries,  was  utterly  incapable  of  steering  a  course 
amidst  the  far  more  complex  mazes  of  the  moral 
phenomena  that  shook  the  very  soul  of  her  century. 
The  moment  came  at  last,  when  agitation  of  every 
kind  grew  hateful  to  her.  Orders  were  given  that  no- 
body should  budge.  And  in  January  1792  Novikov  was 
arrested  at  his  country-house  at  Avdotino,  whither  he 
had  gone  to  rest,  and  conducted,  between  two  hussars, 
to  the  fortress  of  Schlusselburg.  His  philanthropic  in- 
stitutions, his  printing-works,  his  bookshops,  w^ere  all 
forcibly  driven  out.  Paul  I.  at  the  beginning  of  a  reign 
which  was  to  increase  the  population  of  the  Russian 
dungeons,  was  moved  to  open  the  noble  martyr's  prison 
doors.  Legend  goes  so  far  as  to  assert  that  he  im- 
plored his  pardon  on  bended  knee.  Extravagant  the 
story  sounds,  and  it  can  hardly  be  true,  for  of  all  he 
had  lost,  the  only  thing  Novikov  recovered,  besides  his 
liberty,  was  leave  to  end  his  life  in  idleness  at  Avdotino. 

He  had  no  forerunners,  and  no  direct  heirs,  in  his 
own  country.  A  fraction  of  his  inspiration,  minus  his 
high  morality,  descended  to  that  friend  of  Catherine's 
better  days.  Princess  Dachkov,  who  was  another  of 
her  victims,  and  on  w^hom,  nevertheless,  devolved  the 
honour — a  strange  one — of  leading  the  scientific  move- 
ment of  her  time. 

The  movement  to  which  I  refer  was  restricted  in 
scope   and   poor   in    result.      Although   the   reactionary 


124  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

current  had  triumphed  at  the  St.  Petersburg  University, 
and  native  teachers,  Sokolov,  Zouiev,  Ozieretskovski, 
Protassov,  Devnitski,  ZybeHne,  Veniaminov,  Trebotarev, 
Tretiakov,  and  Strakhov,  had  taken  the  place  of  the  old 
foreign  staff,  no  literary  works  appeared  to  replace  those 
of  Miiller  and  Bernouilli.  Speeches  on  great  occasions, 
and  the  scientific  propaganda  of  the  periodical  press, 
exhausted  the  efforts  of  these  new  savants.  Yet  the 
existence  of  a  scientific  press,  and  the  creation,  in  1785, 
of  the  ''  Russian  Academy "  for  ''  the  purification  and 
perfecting  of  the  national  language,"  constitute  a  con- 
siderable step  forward,  for  the  times,  and  in  this  pro- 
gress the  chief  share  belongs  to  Catherine  Romanovna, 
Princess  Dachkov  (1743-1810). 

This  lady,  the  daughter  of  General  R.  I.  Vorontsov, 
and  the  intellectual  pupil  of  Bayle,  Voltaire,  and  Montes- 
quieu, had  galloped  at  Catherine's  side,  in  1762,  along 
that  road  from  St.  Petersburg  to  Peterhof  which  w^as 
to  lead  the  future  Semiramis  of  the  North  to  power  and 
glory.  She  subsequently  contributed  to  several  news- 
papers, wrote  a  comedy  by  command  of  the  Empress 
for  the  Hermitage  Theatre,  and,  without  any  such  com- 
mand, dabbled  feverishly  in  politics,  a  department  in 
which  Semiramis  considered  herself  all -sufficing.  A 
coldness  resulted,  and  in  1769  the  Princess  was  seized 
with  a  strong  inclination  for  foreign  travel.  She 
visited  Paris,  made  a  longer  stay  in  Scotland,  where 
she  knew  Robertson  and  Adam  Smith,  and  where  her 
son  obtained  a  University  degree.  In  1781  she  re- 
turned to  Russia,  and,  as  she  began  her  meddling 
again,  Catherine,  in  1783,  offered  her,  as  ^'a  bone  to 
gnaw,"  the  Presidency  of  the  Academy  of  Science. 
She  showed  considerable  coyness,  but  ended  by  accept- 


PRINCESS  DACHKOV  125 

ing,  and  held  the  post  for  twelve  years,  combining 
with  its  duties  those  of  the  editorship  of  the  Inter- 
locutovy  and,  at  a  later  date,  those  of  the  Presidency 
of  the  ''  Russian  Academy,"  which  was,  in  a  sense,  an 
offshoot  of  the  journal  in  question.  The  Interlocutor 
caused  fresh  disagreements  between  the  Princess  and 
her  sovereign,  and  the  publication  of  VadimCy  in  1795, 
completed  the  quarrel.  The  Tsarina's  quondam  friend 
retired  to  the  country  in  disgrace,  and  there  wrote  her 
Memoirs,  the  French  manuscript  of  which  was  pre- 
served by  Miss  Wilmot  (later  Mrs.  Bradford),  a  dame  de 
compagniey  whom  she  had  brought  back  with  her  from 
Herzen.  She  published  an  English  version  of  the  work 
in  1740.- 

The  author  of  these  Memoirs  is  remembered  as  hav- 
ing possessed  a  disagreeable  temper,  but  a  soul  open  to 
all  noble  feelings.  She  did  all  that  lay  in  her  power  to 
encourage  a  school  of  history,  of  which,  at  this  period,  u 
Chtcherbatov  and  Boltine  were  the  most  eminent  ex- 
ponents. I  have  not  mentioned  her  beauty,  because  I 
have  nothing  agreeable  to  say  on  that  subject. 

The  school  to  which  I  have  just  referred  was  more 
controversial  than  scientific  in  its  essence.  Its  chief 
function  was  to  support  the  author  of  The  Antidote,  by 
defending  the  defamed  past  of  the  nation  against  all  the 
Abbe  Chappes  of  the  West.  Prince  Michael  Mikhai- 
lovitch  Chtcherbatov  (i 733-1 790)  was,  as  his  History  of 
Russia  from  the  Most  Ancient  Times,  and  more  especially 
his  more  popular  essay  On  the  Corruption  of  Russian 
Manners  (which  did  not  see  the  light  until  1858),  will 
prove,  the  theorist  of  the  group.  And  his  theories  led 
him  much  farther  than  the  author  of  The  Antidote  de- 
sired— even  so  far  as  the  wholesale  condemnation  of  the 


126  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

work  of  Catherine  and  Peter  the  Great,  the  defence  of 
which  was  forthwith  undertaken  by  another  historian, 
GoUkov,  in  ten  huge  volumes,  flanked  by  eighteen  supple- 
ments. Chtcherbatov's  point  of  view  is  very  much  that 
of  the  modern  Slavophils,  and  also  that  of  Dierjavine, 
as  exemplified  in  some  of  his  odes.  As  for  Golikov,  he 
is  nothing  but  another  dilettante^  without  knowledge, 
method,  or  critical  instinct.  Chtcherbatov  has  a  certain 
amount  of  knowledge,  and  a  great  deal  more  judgment. 
He  has  studied  the  history  of  other  nations,  and  intro- 
duces the  comparative  method  into  the  historiography  of 
his  country.  He  has  kept  company  with  the  best  authors, 
and  can  quote  Hume  more  or  less  appropriately ;  but 
his  judgment  is  obscured  by  his  uncompromising  dog- 
matism, and  his  knowledge  is  counterbalanced  by  a  style 
at  once  incorrrect  and  insufferably  dull. 

Ivan  Nikitich  Boltine  (1735-1792),  Patioumkine's  fav- 
ourite comrade,  has  added  lustre  to  his  name  by  the 
publication  of  two  volumes  of  notes  on  Chtcherbatov's 
Russian  History ,  and  two  more  on  the  Ancient  and 
Modern  Russian  History  written  by  a  French  physician 
named  Leclercq.  He  belonged  to  an  ancient  family  of 
Tartar  origin,  was  an  eager  collector  of  ancient  manu- 
scripts, edited  the  Rousskata  Pravda  (Ancient  Russian 
Code)  with  lelaguine  and  Moussine-Pouchkine,  and 
may  be  described  as  the  sophist  of  the  Slavophilism  of 
his  day. 

The  Slavophil  theory  had  fervent  advocates  at  this 
period,  but  its  opponents  were  not  less  passionately 
eager.  Among  these,  the  youthful  Karamzine,  who  was 
ultimately  to  change  his  views,  was  a  prominent  figure. 
Partial  justification  of  the  theory  certainly  exists  in  the 
numerous  memoirs  which  have  come  down  to  us  from 


PRINCESS  DACHKOV  12/ 

the  period  of  the  great  Tsar's  reign,  and  give  us  an  in- 
structive picture  of  a  moral  corruption  which  might 
well  invalidate  the  idea  that  any  good  was  likely  to  result 
from  the  labours  of  Peter  and  Catherine.  The  recol- 
lections of  Princess  Dachkov  and  of  Dierjavine  present 
particular  interest  in  this  connection,  but  their  state- 
ments must  be  accepted  with  caution.  The  memory  of 
Catherine's  former  friend  may  have  been  confused  by 
anger,  and  that  of  Dierjavine  by  the  weariness  of  old 
age. 

Taking  it  all  in  all,  this  "  Golden  Age,"  except  in  the 
department  of  history,  can  only  be  marked  in  the  annals 
of  learning  by  leanings,  presumptions,  and  pretensions, 
none  of  which  it  ultimately  justified. 


CHAPTER   V 

THE  TRANSITION  PERIOD— KARAMZINE  AND 
JOUKOVSKI 

According  to  the  terminology  sanctioned  by  long  use, 
the  period  at  which  we  have  now  arrived  is  currently 
denominated  the  Romantic  Epoch.  I  still  have  some  diffi- 
culty in  admitting  the  appropriateness  of  this  title.  The 
literary  evolution  so  described  in  Western  countries  does, 
indeed,  possess  certain  analogies  and  affinities  with  the 
current  which  tended,  at  the  same  period,  to  drag  Russian 
literature  out  of  the  classic  rut  and  borrowed  paths  in 
which  it  had  hitherto  trod.  But  from  the  very  outset 
this  current  took,  and  kept,  a  quite  special  and  distinct 
direction.  My  readers  know  what  the  Romantic  move- 
ment was  in  England,  in  Germany,  and  in  France,  and 
how  it  successively  and  contradictorily  combined  a  return, 
purely  literary  in  the  first  instance,  to  the  traditions  of 
chivalry  and  of  the  Middle  Ages,  with  the  defence  of  the 
liberal  and  humanitarian  ideal  against  the  anti-revolu- 
tionary reaction,  in  the  first  place,  and  with  the  defence 
of  the  national  principle  against  the  cosmopolitanism  re- 
sulting from  the  Revolution,  in  the  second.  None  of  the 
elements  of  this  combination  existed  in  Russia,  or,  at 
all  events,  none  of  them  had  the  same  character  there. 
To  the  Russians  chivalry  was  only  known  through  French 

romances,  and  their  sole  memory  of  the  Middle  Ages  was 

128 


THE  TRANSITION   PERIOD  129 

of  a  gloomy  abyss  in  which  the  national  existence  was 
engulfed,  and  suffered  agonising  trial. 

The  conflict  between  the  liberal  and  the  reactionary 
principle  also  assumed  quite  a  different  complexion  in 
Russia.  Instead  of  working  from  the  bottom  upwards, 
as  was  the  case  elsewhere,  the  emancipating  current 
flowed  from  the  upper  strata  of  society  to  the  lower. 
We  have  seen  Catherine  at  the  head  of  the  philosophic 
propaganda.  Alexander  I.,  was  to  follow  her  in  the 
part,  during  the  earlier  portion  of  his  reign,  and  the 
opposition  he  then  met  with  came  from  the  literary 
circles  of  the  country.  In  Russia,  until  towards  the 
middle  of  the  present  century,  literature  was  the  spe- 
cial field  of  a  small  class,  imbued,  by  its  aristocratic 
origin,  with  a  strongly  conservative  spirit.  And  finally, 
both  the  point  of  departure  and  the  general  direction 
of  the  nationalist  current  in  Russia  were  totally  dif- 
ferent from  those  taken  by  the  same  movement  in  other 
countries.  This  current  was  evident  even  under  Cathe- 
rine's rule,  when  the  political  integrity  of  the  empire 
was  not  threatened  in  any  way.  It  corresponded,  not 
with  the  need  to  defend  the  house  against  intruders,  but 
with  the  desire  to  possess  a  house  at  all.  Of  the  three 
literary  leaders  who,  at  the  moment  now  under  observa- 
tion, were  preparing  the  way  for  Pouchkine — Karamzine, 
Joukovski,  and  Batiouchkov — the  first  two  belonged,  for 
political  purposes,  to  the  camp  of  reaction,  while  the 
third  belonged  to  no  camp  at  all.  In  literature,  the  first 
was  a  pupil  of  the  sentimental  school,  the  second  was  an 
eclectic,  the  third  a  classic  of  a  special  type.  All  three 
really  belong  to  a  period  of  transition,  which  was  to  lead 
up  to  the  evolution  of  the  approaching  future. 

The  intellectual  life  of  Russia  is  so  closely  interwoven 


I30  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

with  its  political  and  social  existence,  both  in  this  period 
and  that  which  follows  upon  it,  that  this  chapter  must 
begin  with  a  comprehensive  glance  at  the  incidents  com- 
mon to  them  all. 


Intellectual  and  Social  Evolution. 

We  all  know  how  Paul  I.,  after  having  been  carried 
away,  for  a  moment,  by  that  wave  of  chimerical  liberalism 
on  which  his  frail  bark  had  floated  in  the  days  of  his 
presumptive  heirship  to  the  Russian  crown,  promptly 
cast  anchor  in  a  shallow  which  proved  to  cover  the 
most  dangerous  of  reefs.  The  history  of  this  eccentric 
sovereign  has  yet  to  be  written,  and  his  real  personal 
psychology  evolved  from  the  present  chaos  of  contra- 
dictory interpretations.  One  fact  seems  clear.  But  for 
the  coup  detat  which  strangled  his  regime,  that  regime 
would  have  choked  the  intellectual  life  of  Russia.  The 
death-rattle  was  already  in  the  throat  of  the  latter. 
Alexander  I.  inspired  it  with  the  breath  of  his  young 
enthusiastic  soul,  so  ill  prepared  for  the  responsibility 
power  involves,  and  gave  it  air.  Europe,  long  exiled, 
returned  once  more  to  the  house  she  had  for  a  moment 
thought  her  own.  But  the  expression  of  her  face  had 
changed,  and  so,  she  fancied,  had  the  expression  of 
her  host's.  On  both  sides,  ideas  which  had  formerly 
hovered  in  the  spiritual  regions  of  the  absolute  were 
suddenly  embodied  in  the  real  and  contingent,  rendering 
every  contact  more  tangible,  every  inevitable  shock  more 
painful.  Then  came  hostile  meetings  and  bloody  en- 
counters on  other  battlefields  than  those  on  which  pre- 
ceding generations  had  exchanged  innocuous  blows. 

Nothing  is  so  realistic  as  war,  and  for  a  long  time 


ENGLISH   INFLUENCES  131 

Alexander  I.  was  almost  the  only  person  who  did  not 
realise  the  new,  positive,  concrete  element  imported 
by  it  into  the  national  life.  He  dallied  with  his  dream. 
Up  to  about  182 1  he  played  with  liberalism,  much  as 
Catherine  had  played  with  Voltairianism.  Until  181 1 
he  defended  Speranski  and  his  reforms  against  the  mili- 
tary party,  which  represented  the  conservative  element, 
and  was  supported  by  the  whole,  or  very  nearly  the 
whole,  of  the  best  intelligence  of  the  country.  Speranski 
was  always  an  isolated  figure,  and  when  the  passage  of  the 
Niemen  and  the  conflagration  of  Moscow  had  proved  the 
triumphant  military  party  in  the  right,  all  sides  were  soon 
fused  in  one  outbreak  of  warlike  enthusiasm.  Conser- 
vatives, liberals,  nationalists,  mystics,  all  rubbed  shoulders 
in  the  ranks  of  the  army  that  marched  on  Paris.  At 
Paris  Alexander  I.  held  on  his  w^ay,  and  publicly  an- 
nounced, in  Mme.  de  Stael's  drawing-room,  the  approach- 
ing abolition  of  serfdom.  At  the  Congress  of  Aix,  in 
18 18,  he  was  still  full  of  his  dreams,  and  openly  expressed 
his  idea  that  Governments  should  place  themselves  at 
the  head  of  the  liberal  movement.  That  very  year  he 
caused  Novossiltsov  to  draw  up  a  plan  of  liberal  insti- 
tutions for  Russia.  At  the  same  time  he  favoured  the 
diffusion  of  knowledge  and  the  creation  of  popular 
schools  on  the  Lancaster  model.  The  English  agents 
of  the  Bible  Society,  which  had  established  itself  in 
Russia,  had  given  him  the  first  idea  of  these  institutions, 
in  1813. 

From  this  epoch  we  may  date  the  predominance  of 
English  influence  in  the  literature  of  the  country.  It 
was  exercised,  in  the  first  instance,  in  a  manner  more 
practical  than  literary.  Nicholas  Tourgueniev  and 
Admiral    Mordvinov  studied   English  authors — the  one 


132  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

for  the  preparation  of  his  Essay  on  the  Theory  of  Taxa- 
tiofiy  the  other  for  his  widely-known  plans  for  economic 
reform.  Walter  Scott  and  Byron  followed,  in  Russia, 
the  footsteps  of  Adam  Smith.  German  poets  and  philo- 
sophers—  Posa  with  his  humanitarian  tirades,  Kleist 
and  Korner  with  their  political  fancies,  Schelling  with 
his  theories  —  travelled  in  their  wake.  There  was  a 
generation  of  Russian  Gottingemsts,  and  French  influ- 
ence had  for  the  moment  entirely  disappeared.  It  was 
only  to  know  a  partial  recovery  in  the  persons  of  Ber- 
anger  and  Lamartine,  of  Paul-Louis  Courier  and  Saint- 
Simon. 

Until  182 1,  Alexander  I.  lived  in  perfect  amity  with 
this  fresh  irruption  of  foreign  elements,  and  the  conse- 
quent intellectual  ferment  within  a  somewhat  restricted 
sphere.  His  tolerance,  and  even  his  protection,  were 
extended  even  to  those  semi-literary  and  semi-political 
secret  societies,  the  inception  of  which  seemed  a  con- 
tinuation of  his  own  dream.  There  were  more  poets, 
like  Ryleiev,  than  men  of  action  in  their  ranks,  and 
poets  did  not  alarm  him  ;  they  were  comrades  of  his  own. 
In  fact,  since  181 1,  Araktcheiev  had  taken  Speranski's 
place,  and  the  Holy  Alliance  dates  from  1815.  The 
man  and  the  facts  ruled  the  situation,  and  the  effort 
to  reconcile  their  presence  with  tendencies  which,  else- 
where, the  sovereign  always  appeared  to  regard  with 
favour  was  singularly  paradoxical.  But  Alexander  made 
no  such  effort.  He  dreamt  his  dream  alone,  on  the 
empyrean  heights  of  his  autocracy,  and  left  the  realities 
below  him  to  fight  it  out,  only  stipulating  that  there 
should  be  no  disturbance  of  his  own  personal  peace. 
All  the  reforming  projects,  whether  of  Speranski  or  of 
the  foreign  philosophers,  were  mere  plans,  and  there- 


KARAMZINE  133 

fore,  still  and  always,  dreams.  Not  one  of  them,  indeed, 
had  been  put  into  actual  practice.  It  was  not  until 
182 1  that  the  military  party  succeeded  in  convincing 
the  sovereign  that  Ryleiev  and  his  friends  would  soon 
cease  to  confine  themselves  to  chanting  the  dawn  of  a 
new  era  in  inferior  poetry.  Then  Catherine's  grandson 
took  fright,  loosed  Araktcheiev,  like  a  watch-dog,  on 
the  harmless  band  of  singers,  and  himself  sought  refuge 
in  the  arms  of  Mme.  de  Kriidener. 

In  this  shelter  death  overtook  him,  and  a  fresh 
catastrophe  was  the  result.  Ryleiev  and  his  friends  con- 
vinced themselves  that  the  moment  for  putting  their 
dreams  into  action  had  arrived.  Hence  the  unhappy 
incidents  of  December  25,  1825, — a  childish  attempt  at  a 
coup  d'etat^  put  down  with  a  savage  hand,  a  gallows  or 
two,  a  long  procession  of  exiles  along  the  Siberian  roads, 
and  the  accession  of  Nicholas  I. 

One  of  those  who  blamed  the  attempt  and  applauded 
its  repression  was  Nicholas  Mikhailovitch  Karamzixe 
( 1 766-1 826).  Born  of  a  noble  Tartar  family  {Karamurzd)y 
he  entered  the  halls  of  literature  in  1785,  by  the  gate 
of  Freemasonry,  the  cloudy  and  sentimental  aspect  of 
which  was  to  attract  his  feeble  and  undecided  character. 
He  was  the  friend  of  Novikov,  and  assisted  him  with 
his  popular  publications.  Already  his  taste  for  English 
literature  was  increasing.  Among  the  members  of  the 
Di'oujeskoie  Obchtchestvo  (Society  of  Friends  of  the 
Russian  Tongue)  he  was  nicknamed  Ramsay.  In  1789, 
he  visited  foreign  countries,  the  bearer,  it  has  been 
thought,  of  a  Freemasonic  mission  and  subsidies.  He 
travelled  through  Germany  and  Switzerland,  sojourned 
in  France  and  England,  and  wrote  some  Letters  from  a 
Russian  Traveller y  the  publication  of  which,  in  the  Moscow 


134  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Journal^  which  he  began  to  edit  just  at  that  time  (1791), 
attracted  considerable  notice  to  their  author.  They 
prove  his  powers  of  observation  to  have  been  singularly 
scanty  and  hazy.  All  the  traveller  discovered  in  Ger- 
many w^as  a  succession  of  worthy  individuals — not  a 
symptom  of  the  philosophic  and  literary  life  of  the 
period.  He  met  Kant,  but  confused  him  with  Lavater, 
just  as  he  confused  Rousseau  with  Thomson.  He 
turned  his  whole  attention  to  the  manners  and  customs 
of  the  ancien  regime  in  France,  and  utterly  ignored  the 
Revolution.  But  wherever  he  went,  he  waxed  enthusi- 
astic and  melted  into  tenderness,  after  the  fashion  of  his 
time,  and  did  not  forget,  while  in  Switzerland,  to  read 
Heloise  again,  and  drop  tears  upon  the  pages. 

The  spirit  of  the  future  historian  is  also  manifest  in 
these  letters.  We  note  a  determination  to  look  on  the 
past  history  of  the  nation  as  the  subject  of  a  romance, 
and  discover  a  succession  of  charming  pictures  in  its 
incidents.  He  was  convinced  that  the  application  of 
the  methods  of  Robertson  to  the  study  of  Nestor 
and  Nicone  would  bring  about  a  most  alluring  result. 
Russia  had  her  own  Charlemagne — Vladimir ;  her  Louis 
XI.  —  the  Tsar  Ivan  Vassilievitch ;  her  Cromwell  — 
Godeonov  ;  and  over  and  above  all  these,  a  sovereign 
such  as  no  other  country  had  possessed  —  Peter  the 
Great. 

Two  novels,  published  one  after  the  other,  in  1792, 
Natalia y  the  Boyard's  Daughter y  2LndPoor  Lisa^  are  a  partial 
exposition  of  this  patriotic  faith.  In  them  Karamzine 
drew  up  a  complete  code  of  sentimentalism,  inspired  by 
Richardson  and  Sterne,  and  accepted  by  several  succeed- 
ing generations.  Nothing  is  wanting  here  :  we  have  the 
correct  love  of  Nature  and  of  rustic  life,  scorn  for  wealth 


KARAMZINE  135 

and  greatness,  thirst  for  immortal  glory,  melancholy, 
tenderness.  And  all  this  is  discovered  in  the  daily  life 
of  the  old  Boyards, — the  author  deliberately  overlook- 
ing the  existence  of  the  Tereni^  within  whose  narrow 
prison  walls  Natalia  would  not  have  found  it  easy  to 
experience  the  sudden  thunderclap  of  emotion  which 
causes  her  to  fall  in  love  with  Alexis.  Historically 
speaking,  all  the  characters  and  habits  of  life  depicted  in 
the  first  of  these  two  novels  are  absolutely  false,  and  the 
modest,  dreamy  Lisa,  whose  story  is  revealed  to  us  in  the 
second — the  humble  flower-girl  courted  by  the  great 
nobleman,  who  desires  to  cast  himself  and  her  into  the 
arms  of  Nature,  is  not  a  vision  very  likely  to  appear  on 
the  banks  of  the  Moskva.  Yet  Lisa  has  drawn  tears 
from  many  eyes,  and  for  many  a  year  the  lake  near  the 
Monastery  of  St.  Simon,  where  her  dream  found  its 
ending,  was  a  place  of  pilgrimage. 

Apart  from  the  matter  of  truthfulness,  to  which, 
doubtless,  the  novelist  hardly  gave  a  thought,  other  good 
qualities,  already  evident  in  the  Letters  from  a  Traveller^ 
justify,  in  a  measure,  his  great  success.  These  are  a  very 
lively  and  delicate  feeling  for  Nature,  a  great  charm  in 
his  descriptions  of  landscape,  and,  above  all,  a  simpli- 
city, vigour,  warmth,  and  luminosity  of  style,  such  as  no 
Russian  pen  had  up  to  that  date  produced.  On  this 
account  alone,  the  appearance  of  these  novels,  was  a 
real  event.  Karamzine,  like  the  true  virtuoso  he  was, 
enriched  the  language  of  Lomonossov  with  a  bevy  of 
foreign  expressions  and  phrases  for  which  he  discovered 
equivalents  in  the  popular  tongue  and  in  the  literary 
documents  of  past  times.  This  attempt  of  his  was  not 
allowed  to  pass  without  vehement  opposition,  apparently 
led  by  Alexander  Siemionovitch  Chichkov  (1754-1841). 
10 


136  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

He,  however,  was  supported  by  authorities  of  far 
greater  weight,  among  them  the  great  Krylov  himself,  by 
a  powerful  organisation  within  the  ranks  of  the  Society 
of  Friends  of  Russian  Literature,  and  a  militant  news- 
paper. The  reactionary  order  of  things  inaugurated,  just 
at  this  period,  by  Catherine  was  another  indirect  support. 
The  arrest  of  Novikov  in  1792  brought  about  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Moscow  Gazette^  in  the  columns  of  which 
paper  Karamzine's  first  work  had  appeared.  The  author 
of  Poor  Lisa  replaced  his  newspaper  by  publications  of  a 
more  purely  literary  character — The  Aglaia  (1794-1795), 
The  Aonides  {i'jc)6-i^()<^\  both  of  them  imitations  of  the 
poetic  almanacs  then  common  abroad.  In  these  Pouch- 
kine  printed  his  earliest  poems.  But  even  the  poets 
*^  found  the  censure,  like  a  bear,  barring  their  path " 
(the  phrase  is  Karamzine's).  He  greeted  the  dawn  of 
Alexander  I.'s  liberating  rule  with  two  odes.  And  mean- 
while his  talent  was  tending  in  a  fresh  direction,  where 
it  was  to  find  a  more  complete  and  definite  development. 
In  the  European  Messenger^  published  by  the  inde- 
fatigable editor  in  1802,  another  novel.  The  Regent  Marf ay 
or  the  Submission  of  Novgorod^  appeared  simultaneously 
with  purely  historic  essays  from  the  same  pen.  At  that 
moment  the  young  writer  was  still  employed  in  trans- 
lating Shakespeare's  Julius  CcBsar  from  Letourneur's 
French  version,  and  the  English  poet's  influence  is 
visible  in  Marf  a.  But  the  novelist  was  already  giving 
place  to  the  savant,  and  the  general  direction  of  his 
thought  was  altering  completely.  Hitherto  his  published 
work  had  always,  even  when  touched  with  republicanism, 
tended  to  the  defence  of  liberal  and  humanitarian  views. 
^'The  blood  of  a  Novgorod  burgher  flows  in  my  veins," 
he  would  say.     This  liberalism,  which  was  very  genuine, 


KARAMZINE  137 

prevented  him  from  leaning  too  pronouncedly  in  the 
nationalist  direction.  ^^We  must  be  men,  not  Slavs, 
before  all  else/'  he  was  heard  to  assert.  I  believe, 
indeed,  that  his  sincerity  on  this  point  was  not  untouched 
by  that  spirit  of  opposition  which  has  always  been  a 
characteristic  and  generic  trait  in  the  most  autocratically 
governed  of  all  the  civilised  nations.  As  liberalism  had 
reached  the  highest  spheres  of  the  government,  the 
opposition  must  necessarily  change  its  tone.  And  of  a 
sudden,  Karamzine  came  to  regard  Russia,  past  and 
present,  as  a  world  apart,  which  was  not  only  severed 
from  the  European  West  by  the  special  conditions  of 
its  historical  existence,  but  which  ought  so  to  remain. 
And,  aided  by  his  powder  of  fancy  as  a  novelist,  and  his 
knowledge  and  feeling  as  a  scholar,  he  set  himself  to  trans- 
port that  poetic  and  ideal  view  of  the  reality  which  had 
made  the  fortune  of  his  artistic  work,  into  the  history 
and  politics  of  his  country.  People  talked  to  him  of 
the  abolition  of  serfdom.  But  was  the  condition  of  the 
serfs  really  so  wretched  ?  When  the  barbarity  of  the 
ancient  customs  which  had  forged  their  chain  was 
blamed,  he  grew  indignant.  Safe  in  his  triple  armour 
of  heroic  optimism,  soaring  patriotism,  and  romantic 
hallucination,  he  took  his  way  athwart  the  gloomy 
horrors  of  past  centuries,  to  confound  their  detractors 
by  calling  up  the  national  ideal  in  all  the  glory  of  an 
apotheosis. 

Journalism  had  long  been  a  weariness  to  him,  but  he 
had  married  without  possessing  any  private  fortune,  and 
depended  for  most  of  his  income  on  this  source.  He 
succeeded  in  obtaining  the  post  of  historiographer  to 
the  crown,  with  a  salary  of  2000  roubles,  retired  to 
Ostafievo,  a  property  belonging  to  his  father-in-law,  and 


138  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

fell  furiously  to  work.  His  course  was  somewhat  un- 
certain, frequently  diverted  and  driven  into  byways 
by  contemporary  events.  In  1811,  at  the  request  of 
Alexander's  sister,  the  Grand-Duchess  Catherine  Pav- 
lovna,  he  presented  his  famous  Alemoir  on  Ancient  and 
Modern  Russia  to  the  Tsar.  This  was  a  return  to  the 
militant  and  active  policy  invoked  by  all  Sp6ranski's 
opponents.  Struck,  in  the  course  of  his  studies,  by  the 
long  periods  of  inertia  which  characterised  his  country's 
past  history,  Karamzine  had  erected  this  condition  into 
a  law  of  its  existence.  He  was  the  author  of  that  strange 
theory  of  ^'historic  patience"  which  has  since  been 
incorporated  with  the  Slavophil  doctrine.  The  main- 
tenance of  the  autocratic  system  was  an  integral  part 
of  this  theory,  which  barred  the  way  to  all  constitutional 
reforms. 

Alexander  was  at  once  offended  and  flattered.  Thanks 
to  the  influence  of  Catherine  Pavlovna,  the  latter  senti- 
ment won  the  day,  and  Karamzine's  intervention  counted 
for  something  in  Speranski's  fall,  and  the  collapse  of 
his  plans. 

In  181 2,  the  historian's  house  at  Moscow  was  burnt, 
and  in  it  the  library  he  had  spent  a  quarter  of  a  century 
in  collecting.  All  he  saved  was  a  couple  of  copies  of 
his  history.  "  Camoens  has  saved  his  Lusiady*  he  wrote 
to  a  friend.  The  Empress  Marie  Feodorovna  offered 
him  the  use  of  one  of  the  imperial  country-houses  near 
St.  Petersburg.  He  hesitated.  Now  that  his  theories 
had  won  the  day  and  were  personified  by  Araktcheiev, 
they  seemed  less  close  to  the  ideal  he  had  conceived. 
He  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded,  however,  and  reached 
St.  Petersburg  in  February  1816,  with  eight  volumes  of 
his  General  History  of  Russia^  and  a  firm  resolution  to 


KARAM2INE  I39 

ignore  the  all-powerful  favourite  of  the  period.  But 
Araktcheiev  was  not  the  man  to  permit  this.  The  Em- 
peror refused  Karamzine  an  audience,  and  the  grant  of 
60,000  roubles  necessary  for  the  printing  of  his  book 
appeared  to  depend  on  a  preliminary  visit  to  the  favou- 
rite. Karamzine  demurred  at  first.  *^  We  will  sell  our 
lands,"  he  wrote  to  his  wife.  But  he  thought  the  matter 
over,  and  ended  by  doing  more  than  submit.  Another 
letter,  written  just  after  his  visit  to  Araktcheiev,  de- 
clares his  conviction  that  he  had  found  in  him  "  an 
intelligent  and  high-principled  man."  He  received  his 
60,000  roubles,  and  the  ribbon  of  St.  Anne  into  the 
bargain.  And  his  recantation  does  not  appear  to  have 
been  indispensable,  for  in  a  little  over  three  weeks  the 
edition  of  the  first  three  volumes  of  his  History,  number- 
ing three  thousand  copies,  was  all  bought  up. 

The  historian's  character  resembles  that  of  the  man. 
An  enormous  amount  of  analytical  labour,  a  very  notice- 
able art  in  the  employment  of  the  material  collected,  and 
an  excellent  moral  intention.  These  are  the  qualities  we 
must  place  to  the  credit  of  his  work.  We  find  quite  twice 
as  many  defects.  His  view  of  the  past  is  invariably 
influenced  by  his  present  sensations ;  he  is  absolutely 
resolved  on  a  sentimental  idealisation — the  optimism,  of 
Leibnitz  as  parodied  by  Thomson  (Karamzine  had  trans- 
lated The  Seasons)  ;  and  he  is  almost  utterly  oblivious  of 
the  internal  development  and  the  moral  and  intellectual 
life  of  the  masses.  From  this  last  point  of  view,  Karam- 
zine is  inferior  to  Tatichtchev.  Yet  his  work,  with  its 
classic  architecture  and  pompous  rhetoric,  holds  a  con- 
siderable place  in  the  literature  of  his  country.  For 
many  years  it  served  as  a  model.  It  influenced  Pouch- 
kine,  and  even  Ostrovski.     Four  more  volumes  appeared 


I40  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

between  1816  and  1826,  carrying  the  story  up  to  the 
accession  of  the  first  Romanov  in  the  seventeenth  century. 
A  short  time  before  the  pubUcation  of  the  fourth  volume, 
Karamzine  passed  quietly  away,  surrounded  with  marks 
of  kindness  from  the  imperial  family.  Nicholas  bestowed 
a  pension  of  50,000  roubles  on  the  widow  and  children, 
and  on  his  tomb  Joukovski's  fervent  verse  celebrates 
^'  the  holy  name  of  Karamzine." 

His  influence  on  Russian  literature  may  be  compared 
to  that  of  Catherine  on  Russian  society.  It  was  a 
humanising  influence.  He  introduced  a  philosophic 
standpoint,  a  high  moral  sense,  philanthropic  views,  and 
tender  feelings  :  all  this  without  any  unity  or  ruling 
thought,  and  without  any  deep  conviction.  His  direct 
literary  heirs,  who  carried  on  in  poetry  the  work  his 
novels  had  sketched  in  prose,  were  Dmitriev  and 
Ozierov. 

Ivan  Ivanovitch  Dmitriev  (1760-1837)  has  left  an 
autobiography  which  reveals  a  curious  two-sidedness  in 
his  career.  On  the  one  side  we  have  his  public  life,  on 
the  other  his  literary  existence,  the  two  never  mingling, 
as  in  Pouchkine's  case,  but  each  running  its  own  course, 
and  hardly  ever  coming  into  contact  with  the  other.  In 
1794  we  see  the  poet  on  the  banks  of  the  Volga,  fishing 
and  dreaming,  and  bringing  home  sterlets  and  verses  to 
his  sister,  who  copies  them  and  sends  them  to  Karamzine 
for  one  of  his  publications.  Thus  appeared  the  Patriot's 
Voicey  the  Ode  on  the  Capture  of  Warsaw^  Yermak — a 
narrative  in  rhyme  of  the  conquest  of  Siberia — and  a 
few  fables.  The  following  year  the  poet  disappears, 
and  until  1802  we  have  only  the  tchinovniky  employed  first 
in  the  Senate,  and  afterwards  as  assistant  to  the  Minister 
of  Crown  Lands.     Then  comes  a  change  of  residence, 


OZIEROV  141 

a  meeting  with  Karamzine  at  Moscow,  and  the  Muses 
reconquer  their  adorer.  He  translates  La  Fontaine's 
fables.  This  is  the  pearl  of  his  literary  performances, 
and  a  considerable  factor  in  the  artistic  improvement  of 
the  language.  At  this  point  a  fresh  whimsical  adventure 
occurs  to  complicate  the  translator's  life.  He,  Karam- 
zine's  pupil,  finds  himself  suddenly  adopted  by  Chichkov's 
circle  as  the  champion  of  the  classic  tradition  and  the 
school  of  Dierjavine,  against  Karamzine  and  the  new 
school,  which  he  at  that  moment  appears  to  represent  ! 
His  absolute  lack  of  individuality  favoured  this  usurpa- 
tion of  his  person.  The  worst  of  it  is,  that  to  it  he  owed 
a  great  portion  of  his  renown,  and  even  of  his  success  in 
the  administrative  career.  In  1807,  he  became  curator  of 
the  University  of  Moscow,  and  in  181 1,  he  was  appointed 
Minister  of  Justice.  He  had  then  ceased  to  write,  and 
he  never  was  to  take  up  the  pen  again. 

Ladislas  Alexandrovitch  Ozierov  (1769- 1816) 
began  by  writing  French  verses,  and  afterwards  produced 
Russian  odes,  epistles,  and  fables.  These  continued  till 
1798,  when  his  first  tragedy,  laropolk  and  Oleg — a  mere 
plagiarism  of  French  models  in  the  style  of  Soumarokov 
and  Kniajnine — was  performed.  The  cold  reception 
given  it  by  the  audience  was  calculated  to  warn  the  author 
that  he  was  behind  his  times.  He  fell  back  on  Richard- 
son and  Ducis  for  his  CEdipus  at  Athens^  and  next,  in 
1805,  on  Macpherson  for  his  unlucky  Fingal^  and  at 
last  attained  success,  in  1807,  with  his  Dmitri  Donsko'i. 
This  is  certainly  the  worst  of  all  his  tragedies,  but  it 
swarms  with  allusions  to  contemporary  events.  Every 
one  recognised  Alexander  I.  in  the  character  of  Dmitriy 
who  successfully  repulses  the  Tartar  onslaught,  and 
Napoleon    I.   in    that    of    Mamau      When    181 2    came. 


142  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

the  work  appeared  prophetic,  and  was  lauded  to  the 
skies.  As  a  presentment  of  history  it  is  utterly  silly. 
Will  my  readers  imagine  a  tender-hearted  and  philo- 
sophic paladin  warbling  with  a  virtuous  and  sentimen- 
tal chatelaine^  and  then  convince  themselves  that  their 
appropriate  names  are  Dmitri  and  Xenia,  and  their 
correct  location  and  period  somewhere  between  Souz- 
dal  and  Moscow,  during  the  fourteenth  century  ? 

Ozierov  was  never  to  repeat  this  triumph.  Tried  by 
many  vexations,  including  an  unhappy  love  affair,  he 
buried  himself  in  the  country,  wrote  a  play,  Polyxena^ 
followed  by  another  entitled  Medea^  and  passed  away, 
at  last,  in  a  state  of  partial  lunacy.  It  was  only  right 
that  his  name  and  work  should  be  mentioned  here.  By 
his  choice  of  subjects  and  his  manner  of  handling  them, 
and  in  spite  of  a  very  moderate  talent,  he  contributed 
almost  as  much  as  Joukovski  to  the  development  of 
which  Pouchkine  was  shortly  to  become  the  definite 
exponent. 

The  glory  of  having  introduced  Romanticism  into 
Russia  was  claimed  by  Vassili  Andr£ievitch  Joukovski 
(1786-1852).  This  was  a  mere  illusion.  Can  my  readers 
imagine  a  writer  of  the  Romantic  school  who  winds  up 
his  literary  career  with  a  translation  of  the  Odyssey? 
The  only  features  of  that  school  which  Joukovski  was 
capable  of  understanding  and  assimilating,  were  those 
which,  as  exemplified  by  Tieck,  Novalis,  or  Fouque,  cor- 
responded with  the  dreamy  melancholy  of  his  own  tem- 
perament. The  great  aims  and  objects  attributed  to 
the  new  poetry  by  the  two  Schlegels  escaped  him  en- 
tirely, and  the  scepticism  of  Byron  and  the  irony  of 
Heine,  in  later  years,  were  both  sealed  books  to  him. 
His  love  of  vague  distances,  of  the  terrible  and  the  fan- 


JOUKOVSKI  143 

tastic,  his  intense  mysticism,  which  betokened  an  exces- 
sive development  of  feeling  at  the  expense  of  reason, 
closed  his  eyes  to  these  horizons  of  contemporary 
thought. 

Practically,  he  simply  carried  on  the  work  of  Karam- 
zine,  whose  political  ideas  and  didactic  and  moralising 
tendency  he  shared.  Thus  it  came  about  that  in  1830 
he  found  himself  left  out  of  the  current  on  which  the 
younger  generation  of  literary  men  was  floating.  He 
misjudged  Gogol,  and  only  met  the  author  of  Dead 
Souls  after  the  period  of  his  intellectual  bankruptcy, 
on  the  common  ground  of  a  pietism  not  far  removed 
from  madness.  The  only  quality  of  the  Romantic  poet 
which  he  possessed  was  his  subjectivity,  but  this  was  his 
to  a  remarkable  degree,  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
make  him  the  first  Russian  wTiter  w^ho  gave  ideal  ex- 
pression to  the  subjective  life  of  the  human  heart. 
In  his  eyes,  poetry  and  real  life  were  one — the  external 
world  and  the  intellectual  world  mingled  in  one  match- 
less sensation  of  beauty  and  harmony. 

The  very  birth  of  Joukovski  was  a  page  of  romance. 
A  country  land-owner,  Bounine,  of  the  obsolete  type  of 
the  ancient  Russian  Boyard,  owned  a  Turkish  slave 
named  Salkha.  A  child  was  born,  and  adopted  by  a 
family  friend,  Andrew  Grigorovitch  Joukovski.  The 
boy  was  afterwards  entrusted  to  the  care  of  his  natural 
father's  sister,  Mme.  louchkov,  who  resided  at  Toula. 
She  lived  in  a  literary  and  artistic  circle,  in  which 
concerts  and  plays  were  frequently  organised.  Before 
young  Joukovski  had  thoroughly  mastered  the  principles 
of  Russian  grammar,  he  had  become  a  dramatic  author, 
having  written  two  plays,  Camillaj  or  Rome  Delivered,  and 
Paul  and  Virginia^  both  of  which  were  duly  performed. 


144  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

In  1797  Mme.  louchkov  sent  him  to  the  University  School 
at  Moscow,  and  not  long  afterwards  his  first  verses 'began 
to  appear  in  the  Hterary  miscellanies  of  the  day.  They 
were  sad  and  melancholy  even  then.  The  death  of 
Mme.  louchkov,  which  occurred  just  at  this  time,  in- 
spired the  youthful  poet  with  an  imitation  of  Gray's 
Elegy  under  the  title  of  Thoughts  on  a  Tomb.  But  verses 
had  a  poor  sale.  The  editors  gave  translations  a  far 
warmer  welcome.  To  bring  in  a  little  money,  Joukovski 
translated  all  Kotzebue's  plays  and  several  of  his  novels. 
After  this  he  tried  the  administrative  career,  and  failing 
in  it,  took  refuge  for  a  while  with  his  adoptive  family, 
returning  to  Moscow  in  time  to  undertake  the  editorship 
of  the  European  Messenger.  According  to  the  custom  of 
the  period,  he  filled  the  whole  paper  with  his  own  work 
— literary  criticisms,  more  translations  from  Schiller, 
Parny,  and  Dryden,  and  a  few  original  compositions, 
romances,  epistles,  and  ballads.  In  1810,  the  generosity 
of  Bounine  enabled  him  to  buy  a  small  landed  property 
to  which  he  retired,  and  there,  for  a  while,  he  lived  a 
splendid  idyl.  His  near  neighbour,  Pletcheiev,  a  rich 
land-owner  with  a  mania  for  music,  was  the  possessor 
of  a  theatre  and  an  orchestra.  Joukovski  wrote  verses, 
which  Pletcheiev  set  to  music,  and  Mme.  Pletcheiev 
sang.  There  was  an  uninterrupted  series  of  concerts, 
plays,  and  operas. 

Suddenly  the  idyl  turned  to  elegy.  The  melancholy 
poet  fell  in  love  with  one  of  his  nieces,  Marie  Andreievna 
Protassov,  and  soon  he  was  fain  to  shed  genuine  tears. 
The  young  girl's  mother  would  not  hear  of  an  illegiti- 
mate son  as  her  daughter's  husband.  The  terrible  year 
1812  opened,  and  she  insisted  on  his  entering  a  regiment 
of  the  National  Guard.     He  did  not  distinguish  himself 


JOUKOVSKI  ^  145 

at  the  Borodino,  but  after  the  battle  he  wrote  his  first 
great  poem,  The  Bard  in  the  Russian  Campy  which  opened 
the  gates  of  glory  to  him. 

It  was  only  an  imitation,  and  a  somewhat  clumsy 
one,  of  Gray's  Bardy  with  a  strange  medley  of  romantic 
sentiment  and  classic  imagery — lyres  that  rang  warlike 
chords  and  warriors  dressed  in  armour.  But  the  public 
did  not  look  too  closely  at  such  trifles,  and  its  enthusiasm 
was  increased,  after  the  taking  of  Paris  in  18 14,  by  the 
appearance  of  an  Epistle  of  five  hundred  lines  addressed 
to  the  victorious  Tsar.  The  Empress,  surrounded  by  her 
family  and  intimate  circle,  desired  to  hear  it,  and  the 
reader,  A.  I.  Tourgueniev,  could  hardly  get  to  the  end 
of  his  task.  His  voice  was  drowned  in  sobs  and  plaudits  ; 
he  was  sobbing  himself ;  and  throughout  the  country 
the  cry  went  up  that  another  great  poet  had  risen  in 
the  footsteps  of  Lomonossov,  and  there  would  be  fresh 
master-pieces  for  all  men  to  admire. 

But  the  country  waited  long.  Tourgueniev  even 
went  so  far  as  to  chide  Lomonossov's  poetic  heir. 
"You  have  Milton's  imagination  and  Petrarch's  ten- 
derness— and  you  write  us  ballads  ! "  At  that  moment 
Joukovski  was  forced  to  play  the  great  man  rather 
against  his  will.  In  spite  of  himself,  he  was  pushed  to 
the  head  of  the  Karamzine  party,  then  in  full  warfare 
with  Chichkov's  Biessieday  and  became  the  pillar  of  the 
rival  society  of  the  Arzamas,  He  drew  up  its  reports 
in  burlesque  hexameters,  which  seem  to  indicate  that, 
in  his  case,  melancholy  was  much  more  a  matter  of 
fashion  than  of  temperament.  But  the  great  work 
which  was  obstinately  demanded  of  him  came  not. 
Settled  at  court,  first  as  reader  to  the  Empress,  and 
later    as   tutor    to    her    children,    Joukovski    gradually 


146  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

• 
built  up  his  reputation  as  an  excellent  pedagogue,  and 
continued  to  prove  his  ability,  conscientiousness,  and 
good  taste  as  a  translator.  From  1817  to  1820  he  super- 
intended the  education  of  Alexander  II.  Between  1827 
and  1840  he  translated,  from  Riickert's  German  version, 
Magharabati's  Indian  poem,  Nal  and  Diamaianti,  In 
1841,  overwhelmed  with  kindnesses,  and  considerably 
enriched  in  pocket,  he  went  abroad,  married,  at  sixty, 
the  daughter  of  the  painter  Reutern — she  was  nineteen 
— fell  into  a  nest  of  pietists,  was  on  the  brink  of  con- 
version to  the  Catholic  faith,  and  finally  plunged  into 
mysticism.  His  ill-starred  passion  for  Mdlle.  Protassov 
may  have  had  something  to  do  with  this  catastrophe. 

In  1847,  nevertheless,  he  gave  the  world  his  fine 
translation  of  the  Odyssey,  and  two  years  later  that  of 
an  episode  in  Firdusi's  Persian  poem  {Shah  Mamet\ 
Rustem  and  Zorav — this  also  after  Riickert.  Death  over- 
took him  at  Baden-Baden,  just  as  he  was  beginning  work 
upon  the  Iliad, 

He  was  a  distinguished  scholar  and  a  noble-souled 
man.  Joukovski's  was  the  hearth  at  which  the  flame 
which  burnt  and  shone  in  the  heart  of  the  '■'■  Liberator 
Tsar  "  during  the  earlier  part  of  his  reign,  was  kindled. 
Did  he  possess  and  conceal  a  poetic  genius  the  revelation 
of  which  w^as  prevented  by  some  unexplained  circum- 
stance? This  has  been  believed.  I  doubt  it.  Joukovski's 
lack  of  originality  amounted  to  an  entire  absence  of 
national  sentiment.  The  ancient  chronicles  of  his  coun- 
try inspired  him  with  only  one  feeHng — horror ;  the 
Slavonic  language  of  the  sacred  books,  ^'that  tongue 
of  mandarins,  slaves,  and  Tartars,"  exasperated  him;  and 
even  that  he  used,  with  its  crabbed  chas  and  chtchas^ 
sometimes  struck  him  as  barbarous. 


BATIOUCHKOV  X^:  147 


He  wrote  no  master-piece,  but  by  interpreting  and 
disseminating  those  of  English  and  German  literature, 
he  largely  contributed  to  the  literary  education  of  his 
country.  And  Alexander  II.  was  not  his  only  pupil. 
Pouchkine,  after  having  risen  in  revolt  against  the  blank 
verse  adopted  by  this  master,  adopted  it,  in  later  years, 
as  his  favourite  method  of  expression,  and  Batiouchkov 
owed  more  than  mere  instruction  to  the  great  poet, 
who  never  made  his  mark,  but  who  was  something 
better  than  a  genius — a  kind,  and  generous,  and  helpful 
friend. 

Although  CONSTANTINE  NiCOLAIEVITCH  BATIOUCHKOV 
(1787-1855)  moved  in  the  same  orbit  as  Joukovski  and 
Karamzine,  he  belongs  to  a  separate  category.  As  a  prose 
writer  he  follows  Karamzine,  but  as  a  poet,  and  even  as 
a  translator  of  anthological  or  erotic  works,  he  goes  his 
own  way.  He  stands  alone.  He  has  none  of  Joukovski's 
sentimental  idealism.  He  is  a  classic,  but  of  the  pure 
Greek  type,  in  love  with  Nature  as  she  is,  conscious  of 
her  real  beauty,  treading  the  ground  firmly,  and  enjoy- 
ing life,  even  to  its  bitterness,  like  some  intoxicating 
beverage.  In  his  person,  as  in  that  of  Krylov,  soon 
after,  the  national  poetry  at  last  reaches  the  stratum  of 
fruitful  soil  in  which  it  was  to  take  root  and  blossom 
forth.  Batiouchkov  only  skims  along  the  surface  of 
this  soil,  but  though  his  life  was  long,  how  short  was 
his  career  !  His  was  the  first  in  that  series  of  unhappy 
fates  of  which  Joukovski's  haunting  thoughts  of  tombs 
and  weeping  shades  would  seem  to  have  been  the 
presage.  He  has  himself  compared  his  condition  to 
that  of  the  most  unhappy  of  modern  poets,  and  his 
lines  on  the  dying  Tasso  are  almost  an  autobiography. 

First  of  all,  war  laid  its  hand  on  Batiouchkov,  and 


148  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

dragged  him  across  Europe.  He  was  of  noble  family, 
and  therefore,  of  necessity,  a  soldier.  He  was  struck  by 
a  bullet  at  Heidelberg  ;  and  at  Leipzig,  in  1813,  he  saw 
his  best  friend,  Petine,  fall  dead  beside  him.  From  time 
to  time  he  had  sent  fine,  though  somewhat  free,  transla- 
tions from  Parn}^,  TibuUus,  and  Petrarch  to  the  European 
Messenger^  and  had  also  sung  an  unhappy  love  affair 
of  his  own,  in  verse  still  somewhat  halting,  and  in 
which  "slopes  gilded  by  the  hand  of  Ceres,"  and  very 
archaic  in  form,  look  clumsy  enough,  wedded  to  the 
first  expression  of  an  exceedingly  beautiful  poetic  in- 
spiration. All  through  Germany,  and  afterwards  in  Paris, 
whither  victory  led  him,  he  lived  in  a  dream  of  triumph, 
celebrating  the  crossing  of  the  Rhine  or  the  ruins  of 
some  manor-house  laid  waste,  and  moved  to  pity  for 
France,  "who  paid  so  dearly  for  her  glory."  His  return 
home,  after  a  short  visit  to  England,  was  a  sad  one. 
Araktcheiev  inspired  him  with  the  conviction  that  the 
net  cost  of  victory  is  the  same  in  every  country.  His 
dejection  soon  reached  such  a  pitch  that  he  felt  himself 
incapable  of  giving  happiness  to  the  young  girl  he  loved, 
and  he  betrayed  the  first  symptoms  of  a  mental  distress 
which  was  destined  to  increase.  In  1816  he  published 
a  few  more  verses  in  the  Messenger^  and  in  the  following 
year  a  complete  collection  of  his  poetry ;  but  he  was 
already  looking  about  for  means  of  leaving  a  country 
the  air  of  which,  thanks  to  Araktcheiev  and  his  likes, 
choked  him — so  he  declared.  In  1818,  thanks  to 
Joukovski's  influence,  he  was  nominated  to  a  position 
in  the  Russian  Legation  at  Naples,  and  returned  thence, 
four  years  later,  a  hopeless  lunatic.  Joukovski  took  the 
tenderest  care  of  him,  but  all  his  efforts  were,  unhappily, 
in  vain.     No  ray  of  reason  ever  crossed  the  gloom,  and 


KRYLOV  149 

for  three-and-thirty  years  the  poet's  miserable  existence 
dragged  on. 

Though  still  farther  removed  than  Batiouchkov  from 
the  literary  group  from  which  the  genius  of  Pouchkine  was 
to  spring,  Ivan  Andr£ievitch  Krylcv  (i 768-1 844)  was 
nevertheless  the  undoubted  product  of  the  same  sap,  the 
same  intellectual  germination  in  the  national  soil,  and 
is  directly  connected,  in  his  best  work,  with  the  popular 
mind,  of  w^hich  Frol  Skobeiev  was  an  expression.  Born  of 
a  poor  family  at  Moscow — his  father  was  a  subaltern 
officer,  and  his  mother,  we  are  told,  supported  the  whole 
family  by  reading  the  prayers  for  the  dead  in  the  houses 
of  the  rich  merchants  of  the  city — he  belonged,  by  his 
origin,  to  the  people.  Yet,  considering  his  surroundings, 
he  was  singularly  precocious.  His  Kofeinitsa  (fortune- 
teller by  coffee-grounds),  a  comic  opera  which  some 
critics  think  superior  in  originality  to  his  later  produc- 
tions, was  written  before  he  was  fourteen.  This  work, 
which  did  not  at  present  attain  the  honour  of  publication, 
but  was  exchanged  w^ith  a  bookseller  for  a  bundle  of 
French  books,  including  Racine,  Moliere,  and  Boileau, 
was  to  be  the  parent,  some  five  years  later,  of  a  Philomena 
and  a  Cleopatra^  both  of  them  sad  failures.  The  author, 
whose  works  were  now  printed,  and  more  or  less  read, 
moved  in  the  circle  of  Kniajnine  and  revolved  in  the 
orbit  of  Novikov,  borrowed  from  foreign  authors  with 
the  first,  and  decried  them  with  the  second.  The  two 
comedies  signed  with  his  name  in  1793  and  1794,  The 
Rogues  and  The  Author y  are  nothing  more  than  adapta- 
tions. 

In  1797  we  find  him  in  the  country,  in  the  house  of 
Prince  S.  F.  Galitsine,  where  he  occupied  an  indefinite 
position,  half  salaried  tutor,   half  family  friend.      Four 


ISO  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

years  afterwards  he  was  dismissed,  and  disappeared.  He 
had,  and  always  was  to  have,  the  instincts  of  luxury, 
something  of  that  free-living  nature  so  common  among 
his  compatriots.  At  this  period,  so  the  story  goes,  he 
began  to  gamble,  in  consequence  of  having  won  a  con- 
siderable sum  (30,000  roubles),  and  led  a  wandering  life, 
going  from  the  gaming-tables  of  one  town  to  those  of 
another.  He  was  not  to  reappear  till  1806,  and  then 
with  his  first  three  fables,  imitations,  it  must  be  said,  of 
La  Fontaine.  Like  La  Fontaine,  Krylov  was  slow  to 
find  his  true  path  ;  like  him,  he  was  never  to  leave  it,  once 
found,  except  for  some  theatrical  attempts  which  were 
not  crowned  with  success. 

Yet  he  resembles  the  French  fabulist  more  by  his 
career,  his  temperament,  and  character  than  by  the 
nature  of  his  intelligence.  There  was  the  same  care- 
lessness and  improvidence  in  both  cases.  If  the  Russian 
fable-writer  did  not  squander  his  fortune,  it  was  only 
because  he  was  born  a  beggar.  La  Fontaine's  favourite 
weakness  was  a  too  great  devotion  to  the  fair  sex.  Krylov 
died  of  an  indigestion,  after  living  (riches  came  to  him 
with  glory)  the  life  of  a  sybarite.  He  was  lazy,  greedy, 
selfish,  careless  in  his  dress,  neither  lovable  nor  loved, 
in  spite  of  the  popularity  his  fables  won  him.  But  he 
was  never  a  dreamer,  like  La  Fontaine.  He  was  far 
more  positive,  and  had  not  even  the  indulgent  good- 
nature of  his  master.  He  is  never  taken  in.  He  lifts 
all  masks,  and  looks  into  the  bottom  of  men's  hearts. 
Finally,  and  especially,  he  is  essentially  a  satirist,  and 
this  feature,  which  distinguishes  him  from  most  fabulists, 
seals  him  an  original  and  national  writer.  Epigram,  in 
La  Fontaine's  case,  is  a  smile.  Krylov's  epigrams  grind 
their  teeth.   The  first  are  almost  a  caress  ;  the  second  are 


KRYLOV  151 

something  like  a  bite.  The  Frenchman's  fables  are  quite 
impersonal ;  the  Russian's  teem  with  transparent  allu- 
sions to  contemporary  individuals  and  things.  Krylov 
shows  us  a  *^  quartette  of  musicians  " — a  monkey,  a  goat, 
a  donkey,  and  a  bear — who  only  succeed  in  making  a 
deafening  discord.  Nobody  hesitates  to  identify  the  party 
with  the  ^'  Society  of  Friends  of  the  Russian  Tongue," 
with  its  four  coteries  and  its  habitual  quarrels.  Then 
he  gives  us  Demiane  and  his  well-known  soup,  with 
which  he  plies  his  guests  till  they  are  sick,  and  every 
one  recognises  the  most  verbose  poet  of  the  day. 

La  Fontaine's  archness  is  thus  turned  into  asperity, 
and  in  this,  again,  Krylov  gives  proof  of  a  powerful 
originality,  more  Russian  than  humane,  and  essentially 
realistic.  Even  in  his  imitations  he  remains  true  to  the 
national  spirit,  to  its  simple,  practical,  commonplace  con- 
ception of  the  world.  With  his  very  scanty  education 
and  very  narrow  intellectual  horizon,  he  not  only  knows 
the  life  of  the  mass  of  the  people  down  to  its  most  secret 
corners,  with  all  its  habits,  ideas,  and  prejudices,  but  all 
these  habits,  ideas,  and  prejudices  are  his  own.  His 
original  fables  are,  as  it  were,  a  counterpart  of  the  pro- 
verbs and  legends  of  his  country.  His  language,  plastic 
and  vigorous,  with  a  touch  of  coarseness,  is  absolutely 
that  of  the  people,  without  the  smallest  infusion  of  book 
lore. 

This  original  quality  of  Krylov's  was  so  striking, 
that  when  the  question  of  his  monument  was  mooted, 
it  proved  stronger  than  the  classical  tradition,  in  a 
country  where  even  the  effigy  of  Souvorov,  that  most 
original  of  men,  was  set  up  for  the  admiration  of  pos- 
terity, in  a  public  square,  disguised  as   the  god  Mars! 

Nobody   dared  to  dress  up   Krylov  as  Apollo !     Care- 
II 


152  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

lessly  seated  on  a  bench  in  the  Summer  Garden,  his 
figure  retains,  even  in  the  bronze,  the  massive  features, 
the  ungraceful  outhne,  and  the  huge  frock-coat  which 
concealed  his  vast  proportions. 

Among  his  two  hundred  fables,  not  fewer  than  forty- 
six  are  borrowed  directly  from  ^sop,  Phaedrus,  La 
Fontaine,  Gellert,  and  Diderot.  At  the  head  of  most 
editions,  The  Fox  and  tJie  Raven  closely  follows  La  Fon- 
taine's text,  with  descriptive  amplifications  and  poetic 
developments  which  greatly  mar  the  simplicity  of  the 
original.  Krylov,  like  Pouchkine,  took  great  pains  to 
find  sources  of  inspiration,  and  equal  pains  to  conceal 
them.  The  subject  of  The  Three  Moujiks  has  been 
detected  in  an  old  French  fabliau,  which  had  already 
enriched  Imbert's  collection.  In  the  case  of  The  Brag- 
gart,  the  original  idea  has  been  attributed  both  to  Gellert 
and  to  Imbert.  I  do  not  feel  disposed  to  blame  the 
Russian  fabulist  on  this  account.  La  Fontaine  himself 
drew  on  ^sop's  fables,  and,  as  for  originality,  those  of 
La  Motte,  which  are  original,  are  none  the  better  for 
that.  Krylov  has  stamped  his  work,  in  a  very  sufficient 
manner,  with  his  own  personal  genius.  His  best  fables 
may  be  said  to  demonstrate  certain  ideas  which  can 
fairly  be  called  his  own.  The  Lions  Education,  The 
Peasant  and  the  Snake,  and  The  Ducat  reflect  his  ideas 
on  education,  which,  as  will  be  readily  imagined,  are 
not  very  broad.  In  the  days  of  Araktcheiev  and  his 
acolyte,  Magnitski,  Krylov  warned  his  fellow-citizens 
against  the  dangers  of  too  much  learning  !  A  second 
category,  to  which  The  Oracle  and  The  Peasants  and  the 
River  belong,  shows  up  the  faults  of  the  national  ad- 
ministrative and  judicial  system.  A  third  touches,  in 
artless  glimpses  that  bewray  the  philosophy  learnt  in 


KRYLOV  153 

huts  over  which  the  tide  of  invasion  swept,  on  current 
poHtical  events,  and  on  the  figure  of  the  great  Napoleon. 
Of  this  series,  The  Waggon  and  The  Wolf  and  the  Dog- 
Kennel  are  the  most  characteristic  specimens. 

I  am  forced  to  confine  myself  to  these  few  remarks. 
Krylov's  works  have  been  translated  into  tw^enty-one 
languages — all  the  Indo-European  and  several  Eastern 
tongues.  There  are  seventy-two  French  translations, 
thirty-two  German,  and  only  twelve  English.  He  was 
introduced  to  English  readers  by  W.  R.  S.  Ralston,  but 
the  most  complete  English  version  is  that  of  Mr.  Harri- 
son (1884).  The  first  national  poet  of  Russia  was  also  the 
first  whose  genius  conquered  the  world  at  large. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  NATIONAL  EVOLUTION— POUCHKINE 

The  first  verses  of  Alexander  Sergui^ievitch  Pouch- 
KINE  (1799-1837)  were  written  in  1814,  At  that  moment 
the  whole  literary  and  political  world,  from  one  end  of 
Europe  to  the  other,  was  in  a  ferment.  In  England, 
Byron — in  whose  voice  spoke,  if  we  may  so  say,  the 
voices  of  Godwin,  of  Paine,  of  Burns,  of  Landor — was 
raising  his  mighty  cry  of  liberty.  In  Italy,  Manzoni  and 
Ugo  Foscolo  were  re-creating  Dante's  dream  of  unity. 
In  France,  wounded  national  pride  and  the  rebellious 
spirit  of  independence  sought  consolation  and  revenge 
in  the  poetic  fictions  of  Chateaubriand,  Benjamin  Con- 
stant, Senancourt,  and  Madame  de  Stael.  In  Germany, 
a  people  still  wild  with  pride  and  joy  was  celebrating  its 
enfranchisement  over  Wieland's  newly-made  grave.  All 
this  was  of  the  very  essence  of  Romanticism,  and  of  all 
this,  in  Russia,  there  was  hardly  a  sign.  There  the  world, 
intellectual  and  literary,  had  remained  in  a  state  of  in- 
coherence, wherein  the  gross  sensualism  and  epicurism 
of  the  French  sceptics,  the  naturalist  philosophy  of 
Schelling  and  Oken,  Slavophilism,  and  mysticism,  rubbed 
shoulders  with  the  ideal  humanitarianism  of  Schiller,  the 
teachings  of  Adam  Smith,  and  vague  notions  of  consti- 
tutional liberalism.  But  in  the  midst  of  this  chaos,  a 
new  language  had  arisen,  a  wondrous  instrument,  which 
only  awaited  the  master-hand  that  was  to  attune  it  to 


POUCHKINE  155 

Ir 

every  voice,  external  and  intgrnaJ-^and  out  of  its  bosom 
had  sprung  a  new  mental  personality,  with  its  own 
special  method  of  being,  thought,  and  feeling — Russia, 
already  embodied  in  the  genius  of  Krylov,  and  soon  to 
be  seen  in  Pouchkine,  Gogol,  and  Tourgueniev. 

Did  Pouchkine  really  represent  this  personality  ? 
There  have  been  prolonged  doubts  on  the  subject,  even 
in  Russia.  With  the  exception  of  Gogol,  the  poet's  con- 
temporaries and  his  natural  judges,  like  the  first  literary 
critics  in  Russia,  Nadiejdine  and  Polevoi,  have  not 
looked  on  him  as  much  more  than  imitator,  a  Westerner. 
To  a  German,  Varnhagen  von  Ense,  belongs  the  honour 
of  having  declared  his  conviction  of  the  falsehood  of 
this  verdict,  and  it  has  been  reversed,  by  degrees,  in 
the  opinion  of  the  country.  Russia,  as  I  write,  is  pre- 
paring to  celebrate  the  poet's  centenary,  amidst  a  general 
concourse  of  enthusiastic  homage,  which  has  never  been 
exceeded  in  the  history  of  the  glories  of  any  nation. 
Nevertheless,  a  French  writer  has  recently  reopened  the 
case,  and  has  ventured  to  come  to  a  definite  conclusion, 
which,  in  his  own  words,  ^'  should  sever  the  poet  from 
his  own  nationality,  and  restore  him  to  humanity  at 
large." 

M.  de  Vogue  will  permit  me  to  say  that  I  fail  to  per- 
ceive the  interest  of  such  a  restitution.  I  incline,  in 
fact,  to  the  opinion  that  the  more  personal,  original,  and 
national  the  creator  of  ideas  and  images  is,  the  more 
likely  is  he  to  interest  the  human  community  in  general, 
whatever  may  be  the  country  to  which  he  belongs.  And 
it  appears  to  me  that  to  deny  the  possession  of  these 
qualities  to  Pouchkine,  is  simply  to  degrade  him  to 
the  rank  of  such  writers  as  Soumarokov.  He  deserves- 
better  than  this.     His  work  is,  indeed,  so  heterogeneous,, 


156  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

* 

so  charged  with  foreign  elements^  and  so  naturally 
affected  by  the  transition  period  of  which  I  have  just 
given  a  sketch,  as  to  justify,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  con- 
tradictory judgments  to  which  it  constantly  gives  rise. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  ruled,  and  in  a  sense 
saturated,  by  one  capital  creation,  Eugene  Onieguine, 
which  alone  occupied  nine  years  (1822  to  1831)  of  a  life 
that  was  all  too  short.  Now  failure  to  comprehend 
the  essentially  national  character  of  this  poem  is,  pro- 
perly speaking — I  do  not  fear  contradiction  on  this  point 
from  any  Russian  living — failure  to  understand  it  at  aril. 
I  will  explain  myself  later  on  this  subject.  I  must  now 
begin  with  a  few  features  of  the  poet's  biography. 

The  poet's  life  is  indiSsolubly  bound  up  with  his 
work.  He  lived  every  line  he  wrote.  And  indeed  his^ 
character,  his  temperament,  his  racial  features,  are  as 
powerfully  evident  in  his  origin  as  in  some  of  his  writings. 
He  was  a  Russian  with  a  trace  of  African  blood  in  his 
veins.  His  maternal  grandfather,  as  we  all  know,  was 
Peter  the  Great's  famous  Negro,  Hannibal,  whose  adven- 
tures he  undertook  to  relate.  The  poet's  father,  Sergius 
Lvovitch,  a  typical  nobleman  of  the  time  of  Catherine  II., 
with  fine  manners,  varied  knowledge,  Voltairian  opinions, 
and  the  perfect  dociHty  of  the  true  courtier,  gave  him 
French  tutors  at  a  very  early  age,  and  these  did  their 
work  so  well,  that  in  1831,  at  the  age  of  thirty-two,  their, 
pupil  could  still  write  to  Tchadaiev,  ^'  I  will  speak  to 
you  in  the  language  of  Europe  ;  it  is  more  familiar  to 
me  than  our  own."  This  boast  of  his  was  a  slander  on 
himself.  My  readers  shall  judge.  At  ten  years  of  age, 
when  living  at  Moscow,  in  a  very  literary  circle,  and  see- 
ing daily,  in  his  father's  house,  such  men  as  Karamzine, 
Dmitriev,  and  Batiouchkov,  the  urchin,  as  was  to   be 


POUCHKINE  157 

expected,  wrote  French  verses  and  borrowed  from  the 
Henriade,  At  fifteen,  at  the  College  of  Tsarskoie-Sielo, 
an  institution  devoted  to  the  education  of  the  youth  of 
the  aristocracy,  he  was  still  rhyming  in  French  : — 

Vrai  demon  par  l^espieglerie^ 

Vrai  singe  par  sa  mine, 
Beaucoup  et  trop  d Stourderie, 
Ma  foil  voila  Pouchki7ie  ! 

There  were  still  French  masters  in  this  college,  among 
them  one  De  Boudry,  who,  under  this  name,  concealed 
a  very  compromising  kinship ;  he  was  own  brother 
to  Marat,  and  his  views  coincided  with  his  family  rela- 
tionship. 

But  in  1 8 14  the  European  Messenger  published  imita- 
tions in  Russian  verse  of  Ossian  and  Parny,  the  initials  at 
the  foot  of  which  scarcely  concealed  the  identity  of  one 
of  the  most  insubordinate  pupils  in  the  College.  There 
was  much  more  writing  than  studying  done  in  that 
establishment.  Even  periodical  sheets  were  edited  by  its 
members.  Among  a  group  of  young  men  who  subse- 
quently made  their  mark  either  in  politics  or  literature 
— A.  M.  Gortchakov,  the  future  Chancellor,  and  A.  A. 
Delwig,  the  future  poet,  both  belonged  to  it — Pouchkine 
(distinguished  himself  by  his  indefatigable  diligence  as  a 
publicist,  and  his  excessive  idleness  as  a  student.  Karam- 
zine  and  Joukovski  thought  highly  of  his  verses,  but  his 
teachers  opined  that  he  *'  had  not  much  of  a  future  be- 
fore him."  In  his  own  family  circle  this  latter  opinion 
necessarily  prevailed.  When  ^' M.  de  Boudry's"  pupil 
left  college  in  1817,  he  was  at  once  received  into  the 
Arzamas y  and  so  plunged  into  the  thick  of  the  political 
and  literary  fray.     Ryleiev  belonged  to  the  coterie,  and 


158  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

the  time  he  spent  in  it  was  by  no  means  occupied  in 
opposing  Chichkov  and  his  classic  theories. 

Yet  Pouchkine's  position  in  the  cHque  was  chiefly- 
connected  with  hterature.  In  1818  he  read  his  com- 
rades the  opening  verses  of  Rousslane  and  Lioudmila. 
Joukovski  and  Batiouchkine  were  astounded.  *'This  is 
something  new!"  they  cried.  The  Chichkov  party 
raised  an  indignant  outcry.  ''A  parody  of  Kircha 
Danilov ! "  they  declared.  But  the  poem  was  more 
than  that.  Some  years  previously,  in  a  still  childish 
effort  entitled  The  Little  Town  {Gorodok),  Pouchkine, 
hke  Byron  in  the  celebrated  note  published  by  Moore, 
had  been  moved  to  make  a  list  of  the  books  he  had 
read,  and  of  his  own  favourite  writers.  In  it  Moliere 
is  bracketed  with  Chenier,  and  Beranger  with  Ossian. 
All  these  are  to  be  traced  in  Rousslane  and  Lioudmilaj 
but  with  them  many  other  things — reminiscences  of 
Wieland  and  Herder,  to  wit,  and  the  evident  influence 
of  the  Italian  poets.  The  groundwork  of  the  poem  is 
borrowed  much  more  from  Ariosto's  humorous  epic 
than  from  the  Kircha  Danilov  collection.  Mere  mar- 
queterie,  on  the  whole,  and  only  moderately  good. 
Where  was  the  novelty,  then  ?  Herein  :  the  application 
of  the  Italian  poet's  ironic  method  to  a  national  legend, 
an  attempt  at  which  had  already  been  made  by  Hamil- 
ton and  others  in  England  ;  but  Hamilton,  in  his  fairy 
tales,  had  only  made  use  of  a  fantastic  element  already 
worn  thin  by  fashion.  Pouchkine — and  this  was  his 
mistake — undervalued  the  treasure  he  had  just  dis- 
covered. Growing  wiser  as  time  went  on,  he  was  to 
hit  upon  the  true  method  of  the  popular  story-teller — 
simplicity. 

The  poem  was  not  published  until  1820,  and  before 


POUCHKINE  159 

it  appeared  a  thunderbolt  had  fallen  on  the  young 
author's  head.  Numerous  other  manuscript  verses  of 
his  were  in  general  circulation,  among  them  an  Ode  to  the 
Dagger^  suggested  by  the  execution  of  Karl  Sand,  who 
had  murdered  Kotzebue,  epigrams  on  Araktcheiev,  and  a 
Gabrielidy  imitated  from  Parny's  War  of  the  Gods,  which, 
for  profane  and  licentious  obscenity,  far  surpassed  its 
model,  but  which  departed  from  it,  more  especially,  in 
its  total  freedom  from  any  ulterior  philosophic  intention. 
Poetry  of  this  description,  simply  and  coarsely  ribald, 
is,  alas !  of  very  frequent  occurrence  in  Pouchkine's 
work,  though  it  does  not  appear  in  any  of  the  *'  complete 
editions."  In  these  the  erotic  poems  are  either  omitted, 
or  so  much  expurgated,  by  dint  of  pruning  and  arbi- 
trary correction,  that  the  original  sense  is  completely 
altered.  Thus  in  the  four-line  stanza  addressed  to 
Princess  Ouroussov,  the  line — 

"  /  have  never  believed  in  the  Tritiity  " 

is  turned  into — 

"  /  have  never  believed  in  the  Three  Graces  "  ! 

Some  special  collections  of  the  poet's  erotic  verse 
have  been  printed  abroad  with  his  name  on  the  cover ; 
and  however  his  biographers  may  have  endeavoured  to 
disguise  the  fact,  it  is  certain  that  his  disgrace  in  1820 
was  largely  connected  with  the  Gabrielid.  Parny's  imi- 
tator narrowly  escaped  Siberia.  By  Karamzine's  good 
offices,  his  punishment  was  commuted  to  banishment  to 
the  Southern  Provinces,  and  the  adventure,  in  the  result, 
set  an  aureole  of  glory  on  the  exile's  brow.  Pouchkine's 
Russian  contemporaries,  like  Voltaire's  in  France,  were 
disposed  to  confuse  liberty  with  license.     But  the  young 


i6o  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

man's  retirement  from  St.  Petersburg  had  a  most  salutary 
effect,  removing  him  from  very  harmful  company,  and 
replacing  its  influence  by  two  others  of  a  very  different 
nature — the  Caucasus  and  Byron.  Between  1820  and 
1824,  the  great  poet  of  the  future  was  destined  to  reveal 
his  power  in  works  which  were  to  cast  a  merciful  shadow 
over  his  early  errors.  All  of  these,  The  Prisoner  of  the 
Caucasus y  The  Fountain  of  Baktchissarai^  The  Gipsies,  and 
the  first  cantos  of  Eugene  Onieguine,  are  the  result  of  this 
twofold  inspiration. 

It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  manner  in 
which  he  has  drawn  upon  them  shows  perfect  discern- 
ment. He  belonged  too  entirely  to  his  period,  his  race, 
and  his  surroundings  for  that.  He  certainly  had  better 
stuff  in  him  than  that  which  goes  to  the  making  of  a 
sybarite  in  life  and  poetry.  He  had  noble  instincts, 
splendid  flights  of  enthusiasm.  His  education,  his  origin, 
his  surroundings,  were  always  to  conspire  together  to 
clip  his  wings.  From  the  Caucasus,  this  time,  he  takes 
the  scenery  of  his  poem,  fascinating  but  cold,  with  no 
apparent  hold  either  on  the  soul  of  the  man  who  de- 
\scribes  it,  nor  on  the  characters  he  sets  down  in  its 
midst.  From  Byron  he  borrows  elements  of  expression, 
occasionally  elaborate,  but  still  simple  in  form — sub- 
jects, phrases,  and  tricks.  At  Kich^niev  and  at  Odessa 
he  scandalised  the  inhabitants,  and  drove  the  authorities 
to  desperation,  by  his  eccentric  demeanour  and  his 
pseudo-Byronic  freaks,  his  adventurous  rides  across 
the  mountains,  his  gambling,  his  duels,  his  excess  and 
violence  of  every  kind.  There  is  a  legend  that  during  a 
duel  with  an  officer  (Zoubov)  he  ate  cherries  under  his 
opponent's  fire.  This  trait  appears  in  one  of  the  tales 
included  in    the   Stories  of  Bielkine  (1830),   one  of   his 


POUCHKINE  i6i 

most  popular  works,  and  would  thus  seem  to  be 
autobiographic.  The  details  of  his  last  and  fatal  meet- 
ing with  Dantes-Heckeren  prove  that  he  was  quite 
capable  of  it.  His  physical  courage  was  foolhardy  and 
indomitable.  He  is  also  reported  to  have  lived  for  some 
time  with  a  tribe  of  gipsies.  And  in  all  this  I  see  more 
extravagance  and  wildness — Abyssinian  or  Muscovite — 
than  romantic  fancy.  Byron  was  never  either  a  gambler 
or  a  bully.  He  would  never  have  bitten  a  woman's 
shoulder  in  a  crowded  theatre,  in  a  fit  of  frantic  jealousy, 
nor  punted  at  a  gambling-table  with  his  own  verses  at  the 
rate  of  five  roubles  for  an  alexandrine  !  His  Russian 
rival  was  always,  for  the  reasons  I  have  stated,  to 
spend  his  vital  energy  in  feats  of  this  description,  and 
reappear  after  them,  worn  out  and  exhausted,  just  when 
the  noblest  causes  appealed  to  him  for  help. 

The  Prisoner  of  the  Caucasus  is  a  Childe  Harold  with 
more  human  nature  about  him,  who  allows  himself  to 
hold  tender  converse  with  a  fair  Circassian.  The  dra- 
matic struggle  between  the  harem  system  and  a  man's 
love  for  a  single  woman  forms  the  subject  of  The  Foun- 
tain of  Baktchissaratj  and  it  is  also  the  subject  of  the 
Giaour.  Aleko,  the  hero  of  the  Gipsies^  who  flies  from 
the  lying  conventionalities  of  society,  is  Byron  himself, 
but  a  disfigured  Byron,  capable  of  introducing  all  the 
weaknesses  and  prejudices  of  the  world  from  which  he 
has  banished  himself,  into  the  gipsy  camp.  In  this  fact 
Pouchkine's  apologists  have  endeavoured  to  discover  a 
repudiation  of  the  Byronian  ethics,  and  the  poet's  con- 
version to  nationalism.  He  never  gave  it  a  thought ! 
Writing  to  Joukovski  in  1825,  he  says,  "You  ask  what 
is  my  object  in  The  Gipsies?  My  object  is  poetry." 
He    had    imitated    Byron    externallvy    because    he    was 


1 62  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Byron-mad  at  that  particular  moment.  He  had  not 
followed  him  in  the  internal  development  of  his  poem, 
because  he  never  was  to  comprehend  the  real  founda- 
tion of  the  Byronic  inspiration. 

The  English  poet  was  a  man  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
in  love  with  a  humanitarian  ideal,  bitterly  surprised  to 
see  it  bespattered  with  blood  and  mud,  and  venting  his 
disappointment  on  humanity  at  large.  Pouchkine  was 
a  Russian  of  the  nineteenth  century,  in  love,  for  a  pass- 
ing moment,  with  liberty,  because  Chenier  had  sung  its 
praises  in  verse  which  he  thought  beautiful ;  ready,  when 
he  left  St.  Petersburg,  to  overthrow  the  whole  world 
because  his  banishment  had  been  preceded — so  it  was 
said — by  an  application  of  corporal  punishment,  the  re- 
ports concerning  which,  more  than  the  thing  itself,  drove 
him  furious  ;  but  who  soon  calmed  down,  confined  his 
ambition  to  a  constitutional  monarchy,  and,  after  1825, 
became  an  unconditional  supporter  of  the  monarchical 
system — politically  speaking,  in  fact,  a  thoroughgoing 
opportunist.  From  the  ethical  point  of  view,  all  that  he 
was  ever  to  assimilate  of  Byron's  spirit  was  his  individual 
independence  with  regard  to  social  tradition  and  habits, 
and  some  tricks  besides,  such  as  the  mania  for  not 
appearing  a  p7'ofessionaly  the  affectation  of  talking  about 
cards,  horses,  and  women,  instead  of  about  literature,  and 
certain  strong  pretensions  to  aristocratic  descent,  con- 
cerning which  he  explains  himself  in  the  celebrated  piece 
of  writing  entitled  My  Genealogy  (^Moia  Rodoslovnaia),  in 
which  he  proudly  claims  the  title  of  bourgeois ^  but  of  a 
line  that  could  reckon  back  six  centuries  in  the  annals  of 
his  country. 

The  GipsieSf  indeed,  corresponds,  in  the  poet's  career, 
to  a  turning-point  which  was  to  lead  him  far  alike  from 


POUCHKINE  163 

Byron  and  from  Southern  climes  ;  and  this  coincidence 
is  doubtless  not  merely  accidental.  The  influence  of 
surroundings  always  affected  this  impressionable  nature 
strongly.  When  about  to  leave  Odessa,  he  bade  farewell 
to  the  sea,  and  to  ''  the  poet  of  the  sea,  powerful,  deep, 
gloomy,  unconquerable,  even  as  the  sea  itself,"  in  lines 
which  are  among  the  finest  he  ever  wrote  ;  and  thus  he 
revealed  the  mysterious  link  which,  in  his  poetic  thought, 
bound  the  man  and  the  element  together.  Fresh  dis- 
grace awaited  him.  At  St.  Petersburg  he  had  outdone 
Parny  ;  at  Odessa  an  English  traveller  introduced  him 
to  Shelley,  and  soon  he  went  farther  than  the  author 
of  Prometheus  Unbound.  He  felt  strong  leanings  to  ''  ab- 
solute atheism,"  and  was  so  imprudent  as  to  state  the 
fact  in  a  correspondence  which,  naturally,  was  inter- 
cepted. He  was  treated  as  a  hardened  offender,  and 
sent  in  disgrace  to  the  care  of  his  father,  who  lived  in  a 
lonely  village  in  the  Government  of  Pskov. 

This  banishment  was  infinitely  more  severe.  Mikhai- 
lovskoie  v.as  very  different  from  Odessa,  and  the  elder 
Pouchkine  took  his  responsibility  as  jailer  quite  seriously. 
The  poet's  letters  were  opened.  He  was  obliged  to  give 
up  seeing  his  friends.  At  last  Joukovski  interfered,  and 
to  such  purpose  that  the  son  was  at  all  events  left  alone 
in  the  village,  his  father  taking  his  departure,  and  leaving 
the  local  police  to  watch  the  behaviour  of  his  perverted 
child,  with  whom  he  refused  to  hold  any  intercourse 
whatever.  Friends  began  to  make  their  appearance, 
and  the  poet  was  able  to  mingle  some  entertainment 
with  his  literary  labours,  w^hich  still  continued.  His 
liaison  with  Mme.  Kern  dates  from  this  period.  At  the 
same  time  he  was  passing  The  Gipsies  through  the 
press,  beginning   his   Boris    Godounov   and   carrying  on 


1 64  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

his  Eugene  Onieguine.     I  am   eager  to  reach  this  latter 
poem. 

The  subject  is  sUght.  Spread  out  over  seven  thousand 
lines,  it  gives  us  a  confused  sense  of  emptiness.  In  a 
country  place,  where  Onieguine  has  retired  for  the  sake 
of  solitude,  he  encounters  the  artless  love  of  Tatiana,  a 
young  girl  living  in  a  neighbouring  manor-house.  He  is 
inclined  to  look  down  upon  her ;  she  takes  the  initiative, 
and  writes  to  him,  offering  her  love.  Here  we  have  a 
first  indication  of  national  originality,  the  direct  outcome 
of  local  tradition.  See  the  Bylines.  Onieguine  is  not 
touched.  In  the  most  correct  fashion,  he  contrives  a 
tete-a-tete  with  the  young  girl,  and  sententiously  informs 
her,  ^^  I  am  not  the  man  for  you/'  They  part,  lose  sight 
of  each  other  for  several  years,  until,  at  a  second  meeting, 
the  scornful  hero  finds  himself  in  the  presence  of  a  fair 
princess,  flanked  by  a  gouty  husband  and  surrounded 
by  a  circle  of  adorers.  He  recognises  Tatiana.  This 
time  it  is  he  who  writes,  and  the  sense  of  his  letter  may 
be  easily  divined.  She  replies  in  her  turn,  '^  I  cannot 
give  myself  to  you.  I  have  loved  you,  I  love  you  still. 
But  I  am  married,  and  I  will  keep  my  faith." 

There  we  have  the  whole  story,  if  we  add  the  episode 
of  the  duel  with  Lenski,  Onieguine's  friend  and  the 
betrothed  of  Tatiana's  sister,  whom  the  hero  kills,  nobody 
quite  knows  why,  unless  it  be  to  demonstrate  that  he 
could  be  odious,  which  might  have  been  suspected  with- 
out this  incident.  Can  any  one  conceive  an  epic  poem 
(for  this  is  very  nearly  what  we  have  here)  in  French, 
German,  or  English  on  such  a  theme?  But  it  was 
written  in  Russian.  It  could  not  have  been  wTitten  in 
any  other  language.  The  subject  is  like  those  land- 
scapes on  the  steppe,  into  which  God  has  put  so  little. 


POUCHKINE  1 65 

and  in  which  men  who  know  how  to  dream  can  see 
so  much. 

Pouchkine's  poem  is  full  of  digressions,  a  constant 
commentary  on  the  story,  apparently  very  Byronic,  but 
in  reality  very  different,  both  in  substance  and  in  form. 
Form  and  substance  are  affected,  in  the  case  of  both 
poets,  by  the  fact  that  one  belonged  to  a  country  where 
men  speak  much  and  unconstrainedly,  and  the  other  to 
a  country  where  expression  is  rare  and  reserved.  The 
dwellers  on  the  steppe  are,  as  a  rule,  a  silent  race. 
Occasionally  some  special  circumstance  may  unseal  their 
lips ;  then  comes  something  like  a  torrent  which  has 
broken  its  banks.  They  grow  talkative  and  prolix  to 
excess.  But  they  are  doomed  to  continue  within  the 
narrow  and  commonplace  intellectual  horizon  that  hems 
them  in,  with  all  the  paltry  ideas  and  interests  it  involves. 

There  was  no  Hellespont  for  Pouchkine  to  cross  at 
Mikhailovskoie.  The  only  water  he  met  with  on  his 
walks  was  a  narrow  rivulet,  which  he  could  cross  dry 
footed.  We  see  the  consequence  in  a  strong  touch  of 
the  commonplace  in  parts  of  his  work.  To  European 
readers  the  interest  of  his  poem  centres  in  the  character 
of  Onieguine.  Now  this  ''Muscovite  dressed  up  as  Childe 
Harold" — as  Tatiana  is  fain  to  call  him,  wondering 
whether  she  has  not  to  deal  with  ''a  parody" — this 
disenchanted  man  of  pleasure,  is  neither  Childe  Harold 
nor  Manfred,  neither  Obermann  nor  Charles  Moor  ;  he 
is  Eugene  Onieguine,  a  character  so  thoroughly  and 
specifically  Russian  that  no  equivalent  to  it  can  be  found 
in  the  literature  of  any  other  country.  In  Russian  litera- 
ture, on  the  contrary,  it  constantly  appears.  It  appears 
under  the  name  of  Tchatski  in  the  work  of  Griboiedov,  as 
Pietchorine  in  Lermontov's,  as  Oblomov  in  Gontcharov's, 


1 66  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

and  Peter  Bezouchov  in  Tolstoi's.  And  always  we  see  the 
same  man.  What  man  ?  A  Russian,  I  reply — a  type  which, 
under  Tourgueniev's  hand,  again,  is  to  incarnate  a  whole 
social  category,  the  innumerable  army  of  the  Lichnyiie 
lioudi, — superfluous  men, — outside  the  ranks,  and  unem- 
ployed, in  a  society  within  which  they  do  not  kiiow  what 
to  do  with  themselves,  and  outside  which  they  would 
know  still  less ;  a  man  of  noble  birth,  whose  ancestors 
were  enrolled  in  the  active  service  of  the  Tsar,  and  who,^ 
freed  from  that  service,  is  as  much  puzzled  how  to  use 
his  liberty  as  an  African  native  would  be  if  he  were 
presented  with  an  instrument  for  wireless  telegraphy. 
This  Onieguine,  this  Tchatski,  this  Pietchorine  feels  he 
is,  and  will  be,  a  superfluity  in  the  sphere  in  which  his 
birth  has  placed  him,  and  cannot  conceive  how  he  is 
to  escape  from  it.  He  begins  everything,  and  per- 
severes in  nothing.  He  tempts  life,  and  even  death, 
with  the  idea  that  what  lies  beyond  may  be  something 
better.  He  is  always  waiting  for  something ;  nothing 
comes ;  life  slips  by ;  and  when,  at  five-and-twenty,  he 
would  fain  fall  back  on  love,  the  answer  falls,  '^  Too 
late  !  Look  in  thine  own  face.  Already  it  is  full  of 
wrinkles  ! " 

Dostoievski,  who  identifies  this  type  with  that  of 
Aleko,  recognises  in  it,  further,  the  eternal  vagabondage 
of  the  civilised  Russian,  parted  by  his  civilisation  from 
the  mass  of  his  own  countrymen.  We  see  him  wan- 
dering hither  and  thither,  taking  refuge  in  Socialism  or 
Nihilism — like  Aleko  in  the  gipsy  camp — and  then  cast- 
ing them  aside,  in  his  pursuit  of  an  ideal  he  will  never 
attain.  The  character  will  bear  many  other  interpreta- 
tions, so  expressive,  so  comprehensive  is  it,  and  at  the 
same  time  so  vague  and  undecided.     Pouchkine,  at  all 


POUCHKINE  167 

events,  has  modelled  it  in  the  true  clay,  drawn  from  the 
very  heart  of  the  national  life  and  history. 

I  cannot  share  Dostoievski's  opinion  of  Tatiana.  Her 
figure  is  charming.  Is  it  really  and  essentially  typical, 
and  Russian  ?  In  its  mingling  of  resolution  with  grace 
and  tenderness,  it  may  be,  although  the  farnous  letter 
in  which  she  reveals  her  love  is  borrowed  from  the 
Nouvelle  Heloise,  In  several  places  Pouchkine  has  simply 
translated  from  Rousseau.  In  her  profound  devotion  to 
duty,  again,  I  will  admit  it.  This  trait  in  Tatiana's  char- 
acter is  the  legacy  of  distant  ancestors.  The  obligatory 
and  universal  military  service  which  for  centuries  called 
every  man  of  the  free  classes  away  from  his  own  fire- 
side, had,  as  its  inevitable  consequence,  the  development 
of  certain  qualities  within  the  home,  and  the  exaltation 
of  certain  virtues  in  the  women  of  the  country.  But 
in  Dostoievski's  view,  Tatiana's  great  originality  lies  in 
the  final  feature,  that  of  her  heroic  adherence  to  her 
conjugal  fidelity  ;  and  I  fear  this  presumption  may  call 
a  smile  to  my  reader's  countenance. 

Pouchkine,  after  he  had  composed  the  first  few  cantos 
of  Eugene  Onieguine^  wrote  thus  to  one  of  his  friends, 
"  I  have  begun  a  poem  in  the  style  of  Don  Juan!*  A 
year  later  he  writes,  "  I  see  nothing  in  common  between 
Eugene  Onieguine  and  Don  Juan!"  These  changes 
of  view  are  common  among  poets.  But  Pouchkine  was 
right — the  second  time  !  In  vain  do  we  seek,  in  the 
Russian  poet's  work,  for  the  religious,  social,  and  political 
p)hilosophy  which  is  the  basis  of  all  the  English  poet  wrote. 
We  do  not  find  a  symptom  of  Byron's  vehement  protest 
against  the  cankers  of  modern  civilisation,  poverty,  war, 
despotism,  the  desperate  struggles  of  ambition  and  appe- 
tite.    The  picture  of  the  soldier  robbing  the  poor  peasant 

12 


1 58  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

of  what  remained  in  his  porringer  never  haunted  the 
brain  of  the  recluse  of  Mikailovskoie.  In  him  Byron's 
excessive  individuahsm,  at  war  with  society,  was  replaced 
by  a  savage  worship  of  his  own  individual  self.  In 
Onieguine's  eyes,  as  a  Russian  critic  (Pissarev)  has  ob- 
served, life  signifies  to  walk  on  the  boulevards,  to  dine  at 
Talon's,  to  go  to  theatres  and  balls.  '*  Feeling  "  is  to  envy 
the  waves  the  privilege  of  lapping  the  feet  of  a  pretty 
woman.  Looking  fairly  at  the  matter,  the  hero's  disgust 
with  life  is  very  like  what  Germans  denominate  Katzen- 
jamnier.  And  if,  as  Bielinski  affirms,  the  poem  is  *^  an 
encyclopaedia  of  Russian  life,"  we  must  conclude  that 
Russian  life,  in  those  days,  consisted  in  eating,  drinking, 
dancing,  going  to  the  play,  being  bored,  falling  in  love 
out  of  sheer  idleness,  and  suffering — either  from  boredom 
or  from  some  love-affair.  In  the  aristocratic  sphere  to 
which  the  poet's  observation  was  confined,  this  picture 
may,  historically  speaking,  be  pretty  nearly  correct. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  was  not  Don  Juan,  but  rather 
Beppo,  which  Pouchkine  had  in  view  when  he  com- 
menced his  work,  not  without  memories  of  Sterne,  and 
even  of  Rabelais.  But  by  the  time  the  first  thousand 
lines  were  finished,  he  had  forgotten  Byron.  At  that 
moment  there  was  a  revulsion  in  the  poet's  ideas,  arising 
out  of  his  experiences  at  Mikhailovskoie,  and  contem- 
porary events  in  general.  The  catastrophe  of  the  25th 
December  1825  found  him  still  in  his  enforced  retire- 
ment. Most  of  its  victims  were  his  relations  or  his 
friends.  If  he  had  been  at  St.  Petersburg,  he  would 
certainly  have  made  common  cause  with  them.  Not 
content  with  blessing  the  providential  chance  which  had 
saved  him  from  this  fresh  adventure,  he  bethought  him- 
self that  it   would  be  as  well   never  to  run  such  risks 


POUCHKINE  169 

again.  He  tore  himself  finally  away  from  the  gipsies, 
^^  sons  of  the  desert  and  of  liberty/'  and  sought  shelter 
in  the  theory  of  Art  for.  arfs  sake. 

This  was  to  lead  him  to  Goethe,  and  from  Goethe  to 
Shakespeare.  No  more  verses  like  those  of  Solitude^ 
written  at  Mikhailovskoie,  were  to  brand  the  name 
of  ^'serfdom"  with  disgrace.  No  more  appeals  for 
intellectual  union  with  Sand  or  Radichtchev.  The  rup- 
ture with  the  past  was  utter  and  complete.  Sometimes 
it  was  to  cause  the  poet  pain,  as  when  the  ^'enlightened 
despotism,"  of  which  he  had  become  an  adherent,  laid 
its  iron  lingers  on  his  own  brow.  ''The  devil,"  he  was 
to  write,  "  has  caused  me  to  be  born,  in  this  country, 
with  talent  and  a  heart."  But  in  vain  w^as  the  turmoil  of 
thought  and  aspiration  and  revolt,  in  which  he  had  once 
shared,  to  call  upon  him  to  return.  He  never  descended 
from  his  Olympus. 

Silence^  viad  7iaiio7i,  slave  of  7ieed  and  toil ! 
Thine  insolent  miirmurings  are  hateful  to  vie  f 

To  the  study  of  Shakespeare,  into  which  he  now  threw 
himself  with  avidity,  he  added  that  of  Karamzine.  In 
the  solitude  of  Mikhailovskoie  the  poet  laboured  to  supply 
the  inadequacy  of  his  "cursed  education."  An  old  nurse, 
Arina  Rodionovna,  guided  him,  meanwhile,  through  the 
wonderful  mazes  of  the  national  legends.  This  resulted 
in  the  conception  of  Boris  Godounov,  In  the  figure  of 
this  throned  pain.}enu  Pouchkine  has  endeavoured  to 
merge  the  features  of  Shakespeare's  Richard  III.,  Mac- 
beth, and  Henry  IV.  Certain  scenes  in  the  play — the 
election  scene,  and  that  in  which  Boris  gives  his  parting 
counsels  to  his  son — are  directly  taken  from  the  English 
playwright.     Taken  as  a  whole,  it  is  only  a  chapter  out 


I70  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

of  Karamzine,  arranged  in  dialogue  form  after  Shake- 
speare's style,  and  written  in  blank  verse  iambics  of  five 
feet — a  metre  familiar  to  English  and  German  poets. 
But  all  that  is  best  in  it — the  scenes  in  which  Pouchkine 
puts  his  old  nurse's  tales  into  his  own  words,  introducing 
the  popular  element,  with  its  simple  temperament  and 
wit  and  speech,  the  only  ones  which  stand  out  with  real 
life  and  colour — must  be  ascribed  to  Arina  Rodionovna. 
The  character  of  the  impostor  Demetrius,  which  has 
brought  bad  luck  to  every  one  who  has  attempted  it, 
including'Merimee,  whatever  Brandes  may  say,  is  a  com- 
plete failure.  Side  by  side  with  that  mysterious  puppet 
Pouchkine  had  a  vision — his  letters  prove  it — of  a  Marina 
who  may  have  been  historically  genuine,  and  who  cer- 
tainly is  psychologically  interesting.  ^'  She  had  but  one 
passion^  and  this  was  ambition,  but  this  to  a  degree  of 
energy  and  fury  which  it  is  difficult  to  express.  Behold 
her  !  after  she  has  tasted  the  sweets  of  royalty,  drunk  with 
her  own  fancy,  prostitute  herself  to  one  adventurer  after 
another,  now  sharing  the  loathsome  bed  of  a  few,  now 
the  tent  of  some  Cossack,  always  ready  to  give  herself  to 
any  one  who  can  offer  her  the  faintest  hope  of  a  throne 
which  exists  no  longer  .  .  .  braving  poverty  and  shame, 
and  at  the  same  time  treating  with  the  king  of  Poland 
as  his  equal!"  The  portrait  is  sketched  with  a  master- 
hand.  Unfortunately,  not  a  trace  of  it  appears  in  the 
single  scene,  clumsy  and  improbable,  wherein  the  poet 
brings  the  daughter  of  the  Palatine  of  Sandomir  face  to 
face  with  her  adventurous  betrothed.  The  two  figures 
in  the  play  are  the  faintest  of  sketches,  and,  except  for 
Eugene  Onieguine,  the  whole  of  Pouchkine's  work,  poems, 
plays,  and  novels,  is  no  more  than  a  series  of  sketches. 
Poltava  was  written  in  the  course  of  a  few  weeks,  the 


POUCHKINE  171 

author,  it  would  seem,  having  thus  endeavoured  to  rid 
himself  of  a  remnant  of  his  Byronian  ballast,  although 
his  Mazeppa  has  nothing  in  common  with  Byron's.  The 
only  Mazeppa  Byron  knew  was  the  Mazeppa  of  Voltaire. 
If  the  English  poet  had  been  aware — so  Pouchkine  him- 
self declares — of  the  love,  the  mutual  love,  between  the 
aged  Hetman  and  the  daughter  of  Kotchoubey,  no  one 
would  have  dared  to  lay  a  finger  on  the  subject  after 
him  ;  but  in  Poltava  this  love,  unexplained,  without  any 
psychological  reason  about  it,  merely  gives  us  the  sensa- 
tion of  being  brought  face  to  face  with  another  irritating 
and  useless  enigma.  All  this  time,  Pouchkine  was  still 
working  at  his  Onieguine.  He  could  only  work  when 
the  work  flowed  easily.  If  inspiration  failed  him,  he 
put  the  subject  aside  for  a  while,  and  looked  about  for 
another.  Thus,  at  this  moment,  Shakespeare's  Lucretia 
gave  him  the  idea  of  a  burlesque  parody,  which  de- 
veloped into  Count  Nouline — a  very  unpleasing  story, 
as  I  should  think  it,  of  a  nobleman  who  has  his  ears 
heartily  boxed  by  a  lady  just  as  he  lays  his  hand  upon 
her  bed.  This  incident  caught  the  attention  of  the  St. 
Petersburg  censure.  The  Emperor  himself  interfered, 
and  the  author  was  forced  to  cast  a  veil  over  Count 
Nouline's  performances. 

It  was  only  a  literary  bauble,  although,  in  later  days, 
some  critics  have  chosen  to  discover  in  it  a  deep  inten- 
tion, a  prelude  to  Gogol's  novels  on  social  subjects,  and 
a  criticism  of  the  habits  of  the  day.  In  Onieguine 
and  Boris  Godounov  Pouchkine  was  putting  out  all  his 
strength,  and  already  a  new  life  was  dawning  for  him,  at 
once  an  apotheosis  and  an  abyss,  in  which  his  splendid 
powers  were  to  be  prematurely  engulfed. 

On   2nd  September   1826,  a  courier  from  the  Tsar 


172  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

arrived  at  Mikhail ovskoie,  made  the  poet  get  into  a  post- 
chaise,  carried  him  off,  full  gallop,  no  one  knew 
whither, — and  the  villagers  wondered,  filled  with  terror. 
Some  weeks  previously,  Pouchkine  had  written  to  the 
sovereign,  beseeching  his  forgiveness  in  humble,  nay, 
even  in  humiliating  terms.  This  was  the  Tsar's  reply. 
The  courier  and  his  companion  travelled  straight  to  St. 
Petersburg,  and  once  there,  the  poet  was  obliged,  before 
resting  or  changing  his  clothes,  to  wait  upon  the  sove- 
reign. There  was  a  story,  in  later  days,  that  in  his 
agitation  he  dropped  a  very  compromising  document — 
an  affecting  address  to  the  Decembrists — upon  the 
palace  stairs.  It  is  just  possible.  The  poet  frequently 
behaved  like  a  madcap.  And  the  verses  are  still  in  ex- 
istence. They  would  not,  I  imagine,  have  affected  the 
Tsar's  inclination  to  mercy.  Their  optimism  is  anything 
but  fierce.  The  author,  having  backed  out  of  the  busi- 
ness himself,  was  very  ready  to  fancy  it  would  turn  out 
well  for  everybody  concerned.  The  interview  was  cour- 
teous on  the  imperial  side,  humble  and  repentant  enough 
on  the  poet's,  and  he  received  permission  to  live  in 
Moscow  or  St.  Petersburg,  as  best  it  suited  him. 

Alas  !  his  admirers  were  soon  to  regret  Mikhailov- 
skoie.  He  plunged  into  a  life  of  dissipation  and  debau- 
chery,— nights  spent  over  cards  and  in  orgies  of  every 
kind,  with  here  and  there,  when  disgust  fell  upon  his 
soul,  short  periods  of  retirement  to  his  former  place  of 
exile,  where  inspiration  came  no  more  to  visit  him. 
It  was  not  till  his  betrothal  to  Natalia  Nicolaievna 
Gontcharov  (1830)  that  he  passed  into  a  short  period 
of  meditation,  and  experienced  a  fresh  flow  of  crea- 
tive power.  He  was  able  to  carry  on  his  Onicguiney 
and,  while  writing  a  great  number  of  lyric  verses,  to  pro- 


POUCH  KINE  173 

duce  those  popular  tales  in  rhyme  of  which  so  many 
illustrated  editions  now  exist,  and  some  of  which,  such  as 
The  Legend  of  Tsar  Saltane,  are  master-pieces.  The  little 
dramatic  fancies  entitled  The  Stingy  Kttight,  Mozart  and 
Salieriy  and  The  Stone  Landlord,  also  belong  to  this  pro- 
ductive period.  Their  value  seems  to  me  to  have  been 
overrated. 

But  once  more,  alas  !  The  marriage  proved  disas- 
trous. The  poet,  who  so  sadly  described  himself  as  an 
'^atheist"  concerning  happiness,  and  cynically  referred 
to  his  engagement  as  his  "  hundred  and  third  love,"  was 
evidently  not  suited  to  domestic  joys.  After  a  curtailed 
honeymoon,  the  young  couple  plunged  into  the  whirl- 
pool of  social  gaiety,  each  going  his  or  her  own  way,  and 
seeking  amusement  that  was  less  and  less  shared  by  the 
other.  Soon  anxiety  was  added  to  indifference.  Pouch- 
kine,  who  recklessly  spent  all  he  earned — very  consi- 
derable sums  for  that  period — was  in  constant  financial 
straits.  He  accepted  a  well-paid  sinecure,  under  the 
Ministry  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  aspired  to  be  Karam- 
zine's  successor  as  historiographer  to  the  crown.  His 
desire  was  attained,  and  he  plunged  into  the  archives, 
intending  to  produce  a  history  of  Peter  the  Great.  But 
Catherine's  more  recent  reign,  and  the  dramatic  episode 
of  Pougatchov's  rebellion  were  destined  to  take  hold  of 
his  imagination.  On  this  subject  he  successively  pro- 
duced an  historical  narrative  and  a  novel.  The  Captain's 
Daughter.  The  narrative  is  dry.  The  novel  has  interest 
and  charm,  both  arising  from  its  great  simplicity  and 
intense  feeling  for  reality.  The  figure,  as  exquisite  as 
it  is  real,  of  the  old  mentor  serving-man,  Savelitch,  has 
its  niche  in  the  gallery  of  types  which  will  go  down  to 
posterity.     But  whether  influenced  by  Walter  Scott,  or 


174  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

out  of  respect  to  the  official  authority  with  which  he 
had  just  been  invested,  the  author  never  leaves  the 
track  of  ordinary  commonplace.  Of  the  political  and 
social  problems  which  surged  through  the  gloomy  epi- 
sode, of  the  eddies  of  popular  passion  which  swept  the 
"  Marquis  of  Pougatchov  "  to  the  front,  the  poet  either 
perceived,  or  hinted,  nothing. 

This  period  of  Pouchkine's  life  was  fertile  in  plans 
and  sketches,  wherein  the  influence  of  English  litera- 
ture seems  decisive,  but  wherein  the  poet's  own  creative 
power  and  literary  tact  are  too  often  at  a  loss.  At  one 
moment  he  had  an  idea  of  imitating  Bulwer  and  his 
Pelham  in  a  novel  of  contemporary  manners,  which, 
with  its  chronicle  of  the  doings  of  several  generations, 
would  have  been  a  precursor  of  War  and  Peace.  Again, 
he  drew  up  in  French,  and  with  many  mistakes,  both  in 
spelling  and  grammar,  the  outlines  of  a  play  or  poem 
with  Pope  Joan  for  its  heroine.  The  play  seemed  too  like 
Fausty  so  the  author  inclined  to  a  poem,  to  be  written  in 
the  style  of  Coleridge's  Christabel.  But  the  plan  was 
never  put  into  execution,  and  we  are  not  tempted  to 
regret  it. 

The  author  of  Eugene  Onieguine  was  visibly  approach- 
ing mental  exhaustion.  In  his  new  surroundings,  his 
inspiration  was  failing  him,  and  his  mental  horizon  nar- 
rowing. In  1 83 1,  the  sympathy  stirred  in  the  West  by  the 
Polish  insurrection  inspired  him  with  an  apostrophe  in 
rhyme,  addressed  to  the  ^'  Calumniators  of  Russia,"  and 
this  is  all  he  can  find  to  put  them  to  silence  :  *'  Know  you 
how  many  we  are^  from  the  frozen  rocks  of  Finland  to  the 
burning  sands  of  Colchis  ? "  A  mere  appeal  to  brute 
numbers,  such  as  the  present  Emperor  of  China  might 
be  tempted  to  make  against  a  European  coalition  ;  and; 


POUCHKINE  175 

after  all,  no  more  than  a  paraphrase  of  the  well-known 
sally  by  the  same  author,  ''Naturally  I  despise  my 
country,  from  its  head  to  its  feet ;  but  that  foreigners 
should  share  this  sentiment  displeases  me  !  " 

In  the  course  of  the  following  years  a  few  rare  flashes 
of  powerful  and  original  inspiration,  such  as  the  Bronze 
Horseman^  dedicated  to  Peter  the  Great,  are  preceded  and 
followed  by  more  and  more  frequent  returns  to  imitation 
and  adaptation.  Meanwhile,  the  poet's  letters,  like  his 
verses,  prove  him  to  be  in  the  grip  of  a  steadily  strength- 
ening despair,  and  haunted  by  the  gloomiest  fancies.  He 
chose  the  place  for  his  grave  ;  he  prayed  God  not  to 
deprive  him  of  his  reason — ''anything  rather  than  that." 
In  1834  he  wrote  The  Queen  of  Spades ^  a  fantastic  tale 
after  Hoffman,  and  the  weakest  of  all  his  works.  In 
1836  he  tried  militant  journalism  with  a  paper.  The  Con- 
temporary^ the  editorship  of  which  he  undertook.  It  was 
a  barren  sheet,  uninteresting,  colourless,  and  flavour- 
less. The  Government  historiographer,  who  frequently 
solicited  pecuniary  assistance,  which  never  seemed  to  gQ,i 
him  out  of  his  difficulties,  champed  his  bit,  and  often 
flew  into  a  fury.  His  pleasures,  his  passions,  his  bad 
companions,  could  not  blind  his  eyes  to  the  degra- 
dation of  his  position  as  a  self-surrendered  rebel,  and  a 
domestic  prophet.  It  drove  him  frantic,  and  yet  he  had 
not  sufficient  energy  to  shake  himself  clear.  This  tem- 
pestuous condition  of  mind  was  sure  to  end  in  a  catas- 
trophe. It  might  have  been  that  plunge  into  mental 
darkness  at  the  idea  of  which  he  shuddered,  thinking, 
doubtless,  of  Batiouchkine  ;  but  it  came  by  the  bullet 
fired  by  Dantes,  a  French  Legitimist  of  Dutch  origin, 
the  adopted  son  of  the  Dutch  Minister,  Baron  von 
Heeckeren.     On  January  27,  1837,  ^^^^^  having  received 


176  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

anonymous  letters  reflecting  on  his  domestic  honour, 
Pouchkine  went  out  to  fight  his  last  duel.  Mortally 
wounded,  he  still  had  strength  to  deliver  his  own  fire, 
and  to  give  a  cry  of  triumphant  rage  when  he  saw  his 
adversary  drop  upon  the  snowy  ground.  At  the  risk 
of  being  dubbed  sacrilegious  by  many  of  my  Russian 
readers,  I  venture  to  express  my  conviction  that  this 
tragic  end  of  a  career  that  was  already  hopelessly  com- 
promised did  not  rob  Russia  of  a  great  poet,  and  this, 
too,  was  the  opinion  of  the  best  informed  among  his 
contemporaries.  Bielinski  had  declared  that  career 
closed  in  1835,  from  the  artistic  point  of  view,  and  had 
indicated  Gogol  as  the  writer  destined  to  replace  the 
author  of  Eugene  Onieguine  at  the  head  of  the  literature 
of  his  country.     He  never  retracted  this  opinion. 

In  his  own  country,  Pouchkine's  glory,  though  un- 
rivalled during  his  lifetime,  has,  like  that  of  his  prede- 
cessors, undergone  various  vicissitudes  since  his  death. 
In  the  first  instance,  there  came  a  period  of  natural  and 
inevitable  obscuration,  during  the  great  political  and 
intellectual  crisis  that  filled  up  the  years  between  i860 
and  1880.  It  then  necessarily  became  evident  that  the 
poet  had  given  no  thought  to  the  essential  problems 
which,  even  in  his  lifetime,  had  passionately  interested 
an  increasing  number  of  the  best  intelligences.  At  that 
period,  in  the  eyes  of  the  eager  youth  who  followed 
the  teachings  of  Bielinski  and  Dobrolioubov,  Pouchkine 
took  on  the  appearance  of  a  sybarite,  at  once  scornful 
and  puerile.  Later,  when  the  theory  of  Art  for  arfs  sake 
had  recovered  some  followers,  in  a  calmer  condition  of 
society,  where  the  delicate  joys  of  existence  were  once 
more  enjoyed,  his  star  rose  again.  It  is  now  in  its  full 
zenith. 


POUCHKINE  177 

When  we  compare  Pouchkine  with  his  peers,  we 
must  acknowledge  that  he  certainly  does  not  possess 
either  the  depth  of  Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  the  strength 
of  Byron,  Schiller,  and  Heine,  the  passion  of  Lermontov 
and  De  Musset,  the  fulness  of  Hugo,  nor  even  that  gift 
of  communion  with  the  very  soul  of  the  nation  which 
enabled  Mickiewicz  to  say,  '^  I  am  a  million  ! "  Pouchkine 
frequently,  however,  surpasses  them  all  in  the  exception- 
ally perfect  harmony  between  his  subject  and  his  form, 
a  miraculous  appropriateness  of  expression,  a  singularly 
happy  mingling  of  grace  and  vigour,  and  an  almost  in- 
fallible feeling  for  rhythm.  Once  or  twice  he  almost 
touched  the  sublime,  but  he  never  ventured  to  cross  the 
terrible  threshold  where  so  many  poets  have  stumbled  on 
the  ridiculous.  Except  for  a  few  fragments  such  as  TJie 
Prophet  (1826),  a  superb  though  somewhat  incoherent 
paraphrase  of  some  verses  from  Isaiah,  which  Dostoievski 
was  fond  of  declaiming,  he  is  essentially  a  "graceful" 
poet. 

His  ardent,  violent,  impetuous  nature  was  mysteri- 
ously combined  with  a  singularly  calm  creative  power, 
which  had  complete  control  of  itself  and  its  subject. 
The  very  act  of  creation  freed  the  poet  from  all  his 
other  intoxications.  The  classic  ecstasy,  the  romantic 
over-excitement,  were  replaced,  in  his  case,  by  "  the 
cold-blooded  inspiration  "  of  which  he  speaks  in  an  ad- 
dress to  Joukovski.  And  it  is  in  this  that  he  was  essen- 
tially a  realist.  In  Shakespeare's  work,  he  set  Falstaff 
above  every  other  character,  because  it  appeared  to  him 
the  crowning  type,  that  in  which  the  poet  had  most 
thoroughly  displayed  the  scope  of  his  genius ;  and  the 
effervescent  temperament  and  sceptical  demonism  of  the 
Don  Juan  of  the  Southern  legends  were  transformed,  in 


i;8  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

his  conception,  into  a  voluptuous  enjoyment  of  existence, 
and  a  tranquil  consciousness  of  beauty. 

Did  his  work  indicate,  and  even  incarnate,  the  true 
destiny  of  the  Russian  people,  that  harmonious  fusion  of 
various  and  conflicting  elements  which  is  the  dream  of 
some  contemporary  prophets  ?  Dostoievski  thought  so. 
Grigoriev  believed  that  nothing  but  the  poet's  death  pre- 
vented him  from  realising  this  compromise,  the  formula 
of  which,  through  gentleness  and  love,  the  national  genius 
would  have  been  called  to  furnish.  It  is  curious  that  in 
this  connection  Dostoievski  should  have  appealed  to  The 
Banquet,  which  is  merely  a  fairly  close  translation  by 
Pouchkine  of  some  scenes  from  John  Wilson's  poem  The 
City  of  the  Plague  (1816).  The  aptitude  and  ease  with 
which  the  Russian  poet  reproduced  these  pictures  of 
English  life,  indicated,  in  his  compatriot's  view,  an  excep- 
tional gift  of  comprehension.  But  among  the  couplets 
with  which  the  translator  has  enriched  the  original  text, 
I  find  a  comparison  of  the  plague  with  winter,  which 
certainly  has  no  British  character  about  it. 

Pouchkine's  universality,  which  has  so  exercised  the 
minds  of  some  of  his  Russian  admirers,  is  nothing  more, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  than  a  feature  of  his  Romanticism. 
Romanticism,  when  it  gave  birth  to  historical  poetry, 
evolved  a  general  conception  that  beside  our  present 
ideal  of  beauty  others  may  exist,  in  the  limits  of  time 
and  space.  This  programme  has  been  realised  by  Goethe 
with  his  Tasso^  his  Iphigenia,  his  second  Faust,  the 
fellow-citizen  of  every  nation,  the  contemporary  of  every 
age  ;  by  Thomas  Moore — with  his  descriptive  odes  on 
the  Bermudas,  his  sentimental  Irish  Melodies,  his  poetic 
romance,  the  scene  of  which  lies  in  Egypt,  his  romantic 
poem  on  a  Persian  subject, — with  a  fulness  which  Pouch- 


DELWIG  179 

kine  does  not  even  approach.  None  the  less,  he  was  one 
of  the  greatest  artists  of  any  time,  and  to  have  possessed 
him  may  well  be  a  sulBcient  glory  to  a  young  nation,  and 
a  literature  still  in  its  beginnings. 

His  language,  rich,  supple,  and  melodious  as  it  is, 
still  betrays  the  nature  of  his  education.  M.  Korch  has 
lately  pointed  out  its  numerous  inaccuracies  and  fre- 
quent Gallicisms.  The  influence  of  French  models  is  less 
apparent  in  his  verse,  than  in  his  prose  narratives.  The 
wording  of  The  Captains  Daughter^  curt,  clear,  a  little 
dry,  is  essentially  Voltairian.  The  line  generally  used  by 
the  poet  is  an  eight-syllabled  iambic,  a  metre  common  to 
much  popular  poetry.  He  also  frequently  uses  rhyme, 
and  even  the  alternate  masculine  and  feminine  rhyme, 
marked  by  the  tonic  accent  {je?ta,  masculine  rhvme  ; 
knigay  feminine  rhyme),  but  in  this  respect  he  has  not 
shown  remarkable  artistic  skill.  As  early  as  1830  the 
author  of  Eugene  Onieguitie  was  surrounded  by  a  com- 
pact group  of  pupils  and  imitators.  Very  severe  on  him- 
self, inclined  to  be  indulgent  to  others,  affable  as  a  rule, 
except  to  a  few  St.  Petersburg  journalists,  he  considered 
Baratinski's  work  superior  to  his  own,  and  submitted 
what  he  wrote  himself  to  the  judgment  of  Del  wig. 

Baron  Antony  Antonovitch  Delwig  (i 798-1 831) 
left  the  College  of  Tsarskoie-Sielo  at  the  same  time  as 
Pouchkine,  and  after  an  examination  the  results  of  which 
were  almost  as  unsatisfactory.  He,  too,  had  spent  his 
time  in  rhyming  verses,  and,  in  18 14,  made  his  first  public 
appearance  in  the  European  MessengeVy  with  an  ode  on 
the  taking  of  Paris.  Aided  by  the  good-natured  Krylov, 
he  found  shelter  for  his  unconquerable  indolence  and 
precocious  epicurism  in  a  modest  appointment  as  sub- 
librarian, and  continued  to  feed  the  almanacks  with  his 


I  So  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

lyric  poems,  of  which  Pouchkine  held  a  high  opinion,  on 
account — so  he  averred — of  their  wonderful  divination  of 
Greek  antiquity,  through  German  translations  and  Italian 
imitations.  Delwig,  of  course,  had  learnt  neither  Greek 
nor  Latin  at  the  college.  In  1829,  he  was  proposing  to 
publish  a  newspaper  of  literary  criticism,  but  his  health, 
already  weak,  gave  way  completely,  and  he  died  of  con- 
sumption in  quite  early  manhood. 

Eugene  Abramovitch  Baratinski  (1800-1844)  began 
life  in  stormy  fashion,  being  obliged  to  leave  the  Pages' 
Corps,  and  forbidden  to  follow  any  profession  but  that 
of  arms,  and  only  as  a  private  soldier.  He  was  servitig 
in  the  Light  Cavalry  of  the  Guard  when  Delwig,  without 
even  giving  him  notice  of  his  intention,  pubhshed  some 
of  his  verses.  They  were  inspired  by  that  specifically 
Russian  form  of  Byronism,  mingled  with  Anglo-French 
sentimentalism,  which  had  been  introduced  by  Joukovski, 
and  adopted  by  Pouchkine  in  his  first  productions, — a 
dreamy,  disenchanted,  melancholy  form  it  was.  The 
condition. of  things  imposed  on  the  country  by  the  rule 
of  Araktcheiev  was  eminently  calculated  to  encourage  a 
form  of  inspiration  destined,  in  Lermontov's  hands,  to 
attain  such  remarkable  power  and  fulness.  Before 
Baratinski  was  promoted  an  officer,  he  was  hailed  as  a 
great  poet.  This  did  not  take  place  until  1825,  after  he  had 
done  a  long  spell  of  garrison  duty  in  Finland,  where  he 
wrote  his  poem  Eda,  which  has  a  Finnish  heroine.  He 
was  never  to  lose  the  impression  of  the  severe  scenery 
which  had  inspired  this  work.  Two  other  poems  of  an 
epic  nature.  The  Ball  Tind  The  Gipsy  Girly  are  dated  from 
Moscow,  whither  the  author — having  married  a  wife  and 
left  the  service — w^as  able  to  retire,  in  1827.  But,  after 
his  stern  experiences  in  his  own  land,  foreign  countries 


BARATINSKI  i8i 

had  an  irresistible  attraction  for  him.  He  had  the  de- 
light of  spending  the  winter  of  1843-44  in  Paris,  in 
intimate  intercourse  with  Vigny,  Sainte  Beuve,  Nodier, 
Merimee,  Lamartine,  Guizot,  and  Augustin  Thierry,  and 
even  of  seeing  Italy, — a  dream  he  had  cherished  ever 
since  his  childhood.  He  wrote  little  in  those  days,  and 
that  little  entirely  in  the  lyric  style.  On  his  road  to 
Naples  he  wrote  The  Steam-Boaty  one  of  his  last  poems, 
and  perhaps  the  best  of  all,  and  he  cied  happy,  as  if  in 
realisation  of  the  popular  saying,  on  the  shores  of  the 
famous  bay. 

Pouchkine  called  him  ^'  our  first  elegiac  poet."  The 
ingenious  mingling  of  playfulness  and  passion,  meta- 
physics and  sentiment,  in  The  Bally  filled  him  with  ad- 
miration. '*  No  writer  has  put  more  sentiment  into  his 
thought,  and  more  thought  into  his  sentiment,"  he  de- 
clared, and  twitted  the  public  of  his  day  with  not  appre- 
ciating at  its  proper  value  a  work  the  maturity  of  which 
placed  it  above  that  public's  level.  The  poet  of  The  Ball 
was,  in  Pouchkine's  judgment,  a  thinker,  and  on  this 
account,  especially,  he  held  him  to  be  a  very  great  and 
very  original  intelligence.  This  judgment  we  may  fairly 
ratify,  although  we  must  not  overlook  the  surroundings 
amidst  which  it  was  pronounced.  I  doubt  whether 
Baratinski's  originality  would  have  been  much  admired 
in  Paris. 

Russia  possessed,  just  at  this  time,  another  thinker, 
of  very  different  powers,  who  had  not  the  good  fortune 
to  be  admired  by  Pouchkine.  The  orbit  of  this  short- 
lived star  was  not  that  in  which  such  men  as  Baratinski 
and  Delwig  revolved.  He  might,  perhaps,  have  drawn 
closer  to  them,  had  not  his  course  been  so  suddenly  in- 
terrupted.   My  readers  will  have  guessed  to  whom  I  refer. 


1 82  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Alexander  Sergui£i6vitch  Griboi^dov(i795-i829) 
had  one  advantage  over  Baratinski  and  Delwig,  that  of 
a  very  thorough  education.  The  year  1812  did,  indeed, 
break  up  his  studies,  and  forced  from  him  the  subse- 
quent remark  that  it  had  taken  him  four  years  to  forget 
the  four  he  had  spent  in  a  hussar  regiment.  He  cast 
aside  his  uniform  in  1817,  but  did  not  leave  the  social 
circle  in  which  his  birth  and  his  uniform  had  placed 
him.  And  thus,  when  he  began  to  think  and  write,  he 
naturally  found  himself  far  removed  from  the  briUiant 
constellation  of  which  the  Arzamas  was  the  centre,  and 
Pouchkine  the  bright  particular  star. 

The  Biessieda  held  out  inviting  arms  to  him.  Prince 
Chakhofskof,  that  insipid  and  prolific  playwright,  assisted 
him  in  his  first  attempts,  and  the  whole  sheeplike  band 
of  the  Chichkovists  attended  on  his  steps.  Before  these 
bonds  could  be  broken,  he  was  to  leave  St.  Petersburg, 
and  enter  the  diplomatic  career. 

He  went  to  Persia,  then  to  Georgia,  found  time  for 
labour  and  meditation,  and  in  1823,  the  manuscript  of 
his  comedy  The  Misfortune  of  being  too  Clever  {Gore  ot 
ouma)  was  passed  from  hand  to  hand  in  St.  Petersburg. 
The  effect  may  be  compared  to  that  produced  in 
France,  forty  years  previously,  by  Z^  Mariage  de  Figaro. 
The  circumstances,  too,  were  similar.  The  play  could 
not  be  performed  in  public  ;  it  was  played  in  private 
houses,  and  during  the  Carnival,  the  students  gave  scraps 
of  it  in  the  open  streets.  For  a  moment,  the  success, 
brilliant  as  it  was,  of  the  first  cantos  of  Eugene  Oiiieguiiie 
found  a  rival,  and  Pouchkine  seems  to  have  felt 
some  annoyanje  ;  for,  prompt  as  his  admiration  for  his 
fellow-poets  generally  was,  he  spoke  of  this  work  with 
great  severity.     His  criticisms  found  a  speedy  echo,  and 


GRIBOIEDOV  183 

Griboiedov,  disheartened  and  embittered,  betook  himself 
back  to  Georgia.  He  was  arrested  in  1826,  on  suspicion 
of  having  connived  at  the  attempt  of  the  Decembrists, 
was  set  at  Hberty,  served  as  Paskievitch's  attache  during 
the  Persian  campaign,  and  only  returned  to  St.  Peters- 
burg in  1828,  armed  with  a  treaty  of  peace  and  a  tragedy 
—  The  Georgian  Nighty  inspired  by  Shakespeare,  and 
a  very  ordinary  performance.  He  was  sent  back  to 
Persia  as  Minister  Plenipotentiary,  and  was  stabbed 
to  death  during  a  popular  insurrection  at  Teheran,  on 
January  30,  1829. 

He  had  made  his  first  appearance  as  a  Shakespearian 
translator,  and  long  nursed  a  plan  for  adapting  the 
whole  of  the  English  playwright's  work  to  the  Russian 
stage.  But  even  as  a  schoolboy  he  was  dreaming  of 
the  comedy  which  has  shed  glory  on  his  name,  and 
noted  its  analogy  with  Wieland's  Dwellers  in  Abderaj 
and  Moliere's  Misanthrope.  The  close  of  The  Misfortu7ie 
of  being  too  Clever  is  in  fact  copied,  almost  wholesale, 
from  the  French  dramatist's  master-piece.  ^^  I  go  to 
seek  some  spot  in  the  universe  where  I  may  find  a  corner 
which  will  shelter  a  feeling  and  wounded  soul.  My  coach  ! 
my  coach  I "  And  yet  Tchatski,  who  speaks  these  lines, 
is  not  a  misanthropist.  He  is  rather,  as  the  modern 
critic  puts  it,  a  misotchi?ie.  If,  like  Alceste,  he  has 
conceived  a  ^'fearful  hatred,"  it  is  less  a  hatred  of 
humanity,  than  a  hatred  of  a  certain  social  condition, 
local  in  its  essence,  limited,  and  remediable.  What 
offends  him  in  this  condition,  is  the  craze  for  foreign  im- 
portations, and  the  tyrannical  influence  of  the  tchine,  both 
of  them  absolutely  contingent  peculiarities,  and  which 
strike  him  as  odious  because  he  has  seen  other  states 
of  society  in  which  these  things  do  not  exist  at  all,  or 
13 


1 84  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

at  all  events  are  not  considered  elements  of  happiness. 
He  is  five-and-twenty,  and  has  just  left  Germany  and 
France  behind  him.  Alceste  is  forty,  and  has  left 
life  behind  him.  Moliere's  comedy,  besides,  may  be 
summed  up  as  a  study  of  character.  The  special  feature 
of  Griboiedov's  piece  is  its  presentment,  strongly  carica- 
tured, of  a  fashionable  Muscovite  drawing-room  in  the 
year  1820.  Into  this  drawing-room  Tchatski  falls  like 
a  thunderbolt.  What  ideas  does  he  bring  with  him  ? 
A  confused  medley,  the  pattern  of  the  intellectual  fer- 
ment of  that  period.  Thinkers  and  artists  alike,  in  the 
fatherland  of  Tchatski  and  of  his  creator,  were  then 
attaining  a  more  and  more  vivid  perception  of  the  truth, 
and  a  more  and  more  simple  interpretation  of  what  they 
saw.  It  was  the  birth  of  original  literature  and  of  the 
natural  school — I  do  not  use  the  word  naturalist^  for 
that,  in  Russia,  would  be  a  heresy.  But  reality,  in  this 
case,  was  not  attractive.  The  clearer  the  consciousness, 
the  more  evident  became  the  sense  of  the  national 
deficiencies  and  blemishes,  and  the  more  eager  the 
longing  to  supply  the  first  and  wipe  out  the  last.  But 
how  ?  A  twofold  answer  came  from  the  two  currents, 
Western  and  Nationalist,  which  still  swayed  men's 
minds. 

Should  there  be  a  concentric  movement  towards 
European  civilisation,  with  an  appropriation  of  the  tradi- 
tional rules  of  its  development  ?  Or  should  that  civilisa- 
tion be  equalled,  and  even  surpassed,  by  an  independent 
application  of  internal  formulae  ?  Men  hesitated  as  to 
which  horn  of  the  dilemma  should  be  grasped,  but  the 
certainty  and  agreement  as  to  the  impossibility  of  main- 
taining the  status  quo  were  absolute.  Outside  the  walls 
of  Muscovite  drawing-rooms,  where  idolatry  of  the  tchine 


GRIBOIEDOV  185 

still  reigned,  the  call  for  reform  was  universal.  The  pro- 
gramme of  both  parties  included  the  raising  up  of  the 
lower  classes,  now  wedded  to  ignorance  and  barbarism, 
under  the  bondage  of  serfdom.  And  thus  the  movement 
towards  the  emancipation  of  the  national  literature  was 
complicated  by  social  and  political  elements.  Many 
minds  confused  the  intellectual  current  with  the  projects 
of  social  reform  it  bore  upon  its  bosom.  Griboiedov, 
who  makes  his  Tchatski  proclaim  his  preference  for  the 
national  dress,  his  love  for  the  past  history  of  his  country, 
his  admiration  for  the  instances  of  heroism  and  moral 
nobility  it  contains,  bore  the  reputation  of  being  a  fore- 
runner of  Tchadaiev,  that  earnest  Westerner  whose  voice 
was  shortly  to  be  heard.  In  opinion,  if  not  in  fact,  he 
was  certainly  a  Decembrist,  the  comrade  of  Ryleiev  in 
that  secret  society  *^  The  Salvation  Alliance,"  which  at 
one  time  numbered  all  the  best  intelligences  of  the  day 
within  its  ranks.  Here  young  officers,  Pestel,  Narych- 
kine,  Muraviov,  Orlov,  elbowed  popular  poets  like  Ryleiev 
and  Bestoujev,  and  aristocrats  such  as  Obolenski,  Trou- 
betzkoi.,  Odoievski,  Volkonski,  Tchernichev — all  soon  to 
be  proscribed. 

Ryleiev,  when  he  joined  the  Russian  army  in  Paris  in 
1813,  seriously  took  himself  to  be  a  liberator.  Some 
years  later  he  was  to  protest,  in  lines  which,  though 
poetically  weak,  were  full  of  ardent  feeling,  against  the 
infamy  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  and  appeal  from  Arak- 
tcheiev  to  the  free  burghers  of  ancient  Novgorod.  The 
suppression  of  the  secret  societies  in  1821  had  the  natural 
result  of  accentuating  the  political  character  of  the  ten- 
dencies apparent  in  them,  and  which,  as  a  rule,  went 
no  further  than  a  hazy  constitutional  liberalism.  That 
presided  over  by  Ryleiev  was  secretly  reconstituted  and 


1 86  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

ramified  in  the  provinces,  in  all  directions,  until  the  ill- 
starred  attempt  of  1825. 

A  little  of  all  this  appears  in  Griboiedov's  comedy, 
though  the  medley  is  somewhat  incoherent,  and  exces- 
sively obscure.  Any  satisfactory  examination  of  it  pre- 
supposes the  use  of  a  powerful  lantern.  I  regard  it  as 
an  impossible  play,  for  acting  purposes,  at  the  present 
day,  and  one  not  easy  even  to  read.  It  came  too  early 
for  its  own  contemporaries.  In  the  Russian  drawing- 
room,  where  Tchatski  breathlessly  pours  out  his  con- 
fused notions,  he  is  taken  for  a  madman.  Herein  lies 
the  comic  element  of  the  piece.  And  it  is  a  prophetic 
element  as  well.  Before  very  long,  Tchadaiev  was 
actually  to  spend  some  months  in  a  madhouse,  and 
before  that  time  came,  Ryleiev  was  to  expiate  on  the 
scaffold  the  ^'  misfortune  of  having  been  too  clever,"  in 
a  society  not  yet  ripe  for  the  shock  of  revolution. 

Ryleiev  himself  was  really  no  more  of  a  revolution- 
ary than  Griboiedov.  Revolutions  are  not  made  with 
speeches,  and,  like  Tchatski,  neither  of  them  knew  how 
to  do  more  than  preach.  From  1823  to  1824  the  famous 
Decembrist  was  quietly  occupied  in  editing,  with  Bestou- 
jev,  a  literary  paper  call  The  Northern  Star,  which  repro- 
duced the  artistic  theories  of  the  Globe,  in  the  articles  by 
Sainte-Beuve  and  Jouffroy,  then  appearing  in  that  paper, 
and  paid  a  periodical  tribute  to  the  ^'  practical  liberalism  " 
of  the  French  and  English  Romanticists.  Chance  had  a 
great  deal  to  do  with  that  armed  attempt,  which  was  no 
more  than  a  scuffle,  in  the  year  1825. 

Griboiedov,  more  prudent,  more  easily  disheartened, 
too,  having  felt  his  way  by  means  of  his  comedy,  retired 
discreetly  into  the  background.  It  was  not  till  after  his 
death  that  the  piece  was  staged,  and   then   only  after 


GRIBOIEDOV  187 

liberal  cutting.  If  the  truth  must  out,  the  friendly  recep- 
tion it  received  from  the  general  public,  both  on  its  first 
appearance  and  subsequently,  was  chiefly  due  to  its  ludi- 
crous qualities,  the  caricature  it  offered  of  a  well-known 
social  circle,  the  satisfaction  it  gave  to  the  satirical  instinct 
of  the  majority. 

But  other  prophets  were  at  hand,  less  prone  to  failure 
and  compromise.  Soon,  over  Pouchkine's  tomb,  the  voice 
of  Lermontov  was  to  rise,  expressing,  in  more  virile 
accents,  a  new  spirit  of  independence  and  revolt.  The 
current  of  emancipation,  checked  for  a  moment,  was  to 
flow  without  further  stoppage,  in  a  stream  of  steady  de- 
velopment, towards  undoubted  if  partial  triumph.  From 
1830  to  1870  the  whole  literary  and  political  history  of 
Russia  is  summed  up  in  the  victorious  stages  of  this 
march  of  justice,  light,  and  liberty.  I  shall  now  endea- 
vour to  indicate  them  briefly,  turning  my  attention,  in 
the  first  place,  to  those  labourers  in  the  great  work  who 
have  lavished .  on  it  the  most  arduous  and  most  con- 
scious effort.  Scientists,  philosophers,  historians,  literary 
critics,  or  artists,  poets,  and  novelists,  I  shall  show  their 
common  endeavour  to  seize  and  retain  the  truth,  under  its 
thick-laid  covering  of  ignorance  and  false  conception,  and 
watch  them  as  they  gather,  in  the  literature  (now  become 
legendary)  of  divulgation  and  accusatiotiy  a  sheaf  of  truths 
— poignant,  cruel,  cutting  as  rods — w4iich,  day  by  day, 
and  year  by  year,  are  to  uncover  and  probe  and  wither 
the  miseries,  the  baseness,  the  shameful  spots,  that  stained 
the  nation's  life.  Then,  following  on  these  inquisitors, 
these  accusers,  these  judges,  I  will  show  the  bearers  of 
a  message  of  clemency,  of  peace  and  faith,  preachers 
who  reply  to  these  violent  and  despairing  negations 
with  their  own  sure  and  resolute  affirmations — prophets 


1 88  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

of  a  new  religion,  which,  they  are  firmly  convinced,  is 
not  only  to  raise  the  whole  level  of  the  nation,  intellec- 
tual and  moral,  but  to  lift  it  to  a  destiny  far  exceeding 
that  to  which  any  other  nation  has  yet  aspired. 

Chronologically  speaking,  the  succession  of  pheno- 
mena I  have  described  is  certainly  not  absolute.  Yet  it 
is  exact  enough  o*n  the  whole,  and  I  shall  adhere  to  it, 
so  as  to  bring  out  features  which  might  otherwise  appear 
confused,  and  to  give  more  clearness  to  the  general  pro- 
cess of  an  evolution  which  has  endued  the  fatherland 
of  Pouchkine  and  Lermontov  with  the  intellectual  and 
moral  physionomy  it  now  wears  in  the  eyes  of  all  the 
world. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    EMANCIPATING   MOVEMENT— 
THE   DOCTRINAIRES 

The  intellectual  ferment  which  had  preceded  the  acces- 
sion of  Nicholas,  and  prepared  the  way  for  the  attempt 
of  the  Decembrists,  was  quenched  in  a  flood  of  blood,  and 
hidden  under  a  heavy  stone.  Seventeen  distinct  offices 
of  censure  laboured  in  concert  to  bury  the  ferment  of 
budding  thought.  All  discussion  of  political  and  social 
questions  was  forbidden,  and  learning  was  hemmed 
within  the  boundaries  of  official  history,  and  a  closely- 
watched  literary  criticism.  A  most  unnecessary  pre- 
caution !  Criticism,  represented  on  the  Northern  Bee  by 
two  renegade  liberals,  Grietch  (1787-1867),  and  Boul- 
garine  (i 789-1 859),  and  on  the  Reader s  Library  by  a 
literary  clown,  Senkovski  (1800-1858),  who  signed  his 
articles  with  such  pseudonyms  as  "  Baron  Brambaiis " 
or  Tioutioundji' Oglay  did  much  more  in  the  way  of 
official  service  than  in  that  of  pronouncing  literary 
verdicts.  Its  whole  endeavour  was  spent  in  combating 
liberal  ideas,  and  every  manifestation  of  art  or  literature 
which  appeared  to  be  connected  with  them. 

Such  were  the  first-fruits  of  the  new  regime.  These 
three  stars  long  reigned  over  the  official  world  of  letters 
in  St.  Petersburg.     But  at  Moscow  a  nucleus  of  liberal 

and  pseudo- romantic  opposition  continued  to  subsist. 

189 


190  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

In  The  Son  of  the  Fathejdand,  Alexander  Bestoujev  (1795- 
1837),  the  friend  of  Ryleiev,  and  author — under  the 
nom  de  plume  of  Marlinski — of  novels  which  caused  the 
sentimental  maidens  of  the  period  to  quiver  with  delight, 
fought,  and  fought  actively,  in  the  cause  of  Pouchkine 
and  the  younger  literary  school.  In  The  Telegi^aph^  a  won- 
derful self-taught  writer,  Nicholas  Alexieievitch  Polevoi 
( 1 796-1 846),  who,  until  a  ripe  age,  traded  as  a  Siberian 
merchant,  and  then  suddenly  felt  the  call  of  a  literary 
and  scientific  vocation,  held  lively  controversy  with 
Nicholas  Trofimovitch  Katchenovski  (1775-1842),  a  pro- 
fessor of  history,  and  founder  of  an  historical  school 
steeped  in  scepticism,  yet  the  ofHcial  champion  of  pseudo- 
classicism  and  of  the  statu  quo  in  literature,. politics,  and 
social  matters. 

Polevoi's  scepticism  went  further, — too  far,  indeed. 
His  encyclopaedic  excursions,  just  touched  with  liber- 
alism, into  literature,  history,  jurisprudence,  music, 
medicine,  and  the  Sanskrit  tongue,  often  led  him  to 
confuse  pedantry  with  knowledge,  and  then  heap  scorn 
on  both.  Nevertheless,  his  Sketches  of  Russian  Literature 
mark  an  era,  for  they  let  in  a  first  breath  of  fresh  air 
upon  the  mildewy  routine  of  the  old-fashioned  aesthetic 
formulae.  His  attempt  at  a  history  of  the  internal  de-- 
velopment  of  the  Russian  people,  after  the  manner  of 
Guizot  and  Niebuhr  (-^/>/<?;j  of  the  Russian  PeopUy  6  vols. 
1829-33)  is,  on  the  other  hand,  a  failure. 

And  its  author  was  not  to  remain  true  to  his  colours. 
In  1834,  The  Telegraph  was  suppressed,  in  consequence 
of  an  article  which  declared  a  play  by  Nestor  Koukolnik 
to  be  a  bad  one.  This  Koukolnik  (1809-1868)  was  a 
poor  playv/right  and  a  worse  novelist.  His  piece,  The 
Hand  of  the  Most  High  has  Saved  the  Fatherland^  was  cer- 


POLEVOI  191 

tainly  not  worth  all  the  evil  Polevoi'  took  the  trouble  to 
say  of  it.  But  Koukolnik^  with  his  inflated  rhetoric  and 
pompous  patriotism,  held  the  favour  of  the  powers  that 
were.  Polevoi'  had  a  family  to  support,  and  four  thou- 
sand subscribers  whom  he  must  keep,  to  that  end.  He 
made  up  his  mind  to  hide  his  colours  in  his  pocket,  de- 
parted to  St.  Petersburg,  and  there  rallied  the  band  com- 
prising Boulgarine  and  Grietch  to  the  support  of  another 
review. 

Moscow  lost  nothing  by  his  desertion.  The  Tele- 
graph was  speedily  replaced  by  The  Telescope^  which,  in 
1836,  published  Tchadaiev's  famous  philosophic  letter. 
Already,  since  1825,  in  the  ancient  capital — where  the 
terrorism  of  Nicholas  I.  was  less  apparent  than  in  St. 
Petersburg — a  certain  current  of  philosophical  ideas  and 
studies,  issuing  from  the  great  flow  of  contemporary 
German  thought,  had  been  growing  amidst  the  youth 
of  the  university.  The  frontiers  were  not  so  well  guarded 
against  the  entry  of  contraband  literature  as  to  prevent 
the  doctrines  of  Kant,  Schelling,  and  Hegel  from  elud- 
ing the  vigilant  eyes  of  the  officials,  and  under  their 
influence,  the  struggle  between  Occidentals  and  Slavo- 
phils woke  again,  and  grew  hotter  than  ever.  Not  a 
symptom  of  this  appeared  in  the  press.  The  secret  was 
concealed  in  whispered  conversations,  and  in  the  more 
or  less  inviolable  intimacy  of  personal  correspondence. 
Then  all  of  a  sudden  the  voice  of  Tchadaiev  broke,  like 
a  clap  of  thunder,  on  the  silence.  Was  it  a  cry  of  re- 
ligious terror  only,  as  some  have  asserted  ?  Not  that, 
indeed  !  It  was  also,  and  above  all  other  things,  a  cry 
of  protest  against  the  conventional  optimism  of  a  society 
insufhciently  aware  of  its  proper  destiny,  against  the 
official  fiction  of  a  civilisation  still  barren  of  ideals.     It  is 


192  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

impossible  to  overrate  the  sensation  which  this  new  and 
surprising  voice  created  in  the  coteries  of  Russia. 

A  man  of  the  world  and  a  traveller,  like  Tchatski, 
Peter  Iakovl£vitch  Tchadaiev  (i 793-1855),  had  for 
some  time  been  carrying  an  intellect  much  inclined  to 
paradox,  a  discontented  temper,  and  a  brilliant  humour, 
from  one  drawing-room  to  another.  Under  cover  of 
a  correspondence  with  a  friend,  a  lady,  he  had  already 
made  a  partial  sketch  of  his  ideas.  The  letter  published 
by  The  Telescope  was  not  his  first.  Others  were  already 
being  handed  about  in  manuscript.  In  them  their  author 
posed  as  the  representative  of  the  second  great  current 
of  French  influence,  which  La  Harpe,  the  teacher  of 
Alexander  I.,  had  been  the  means  of  introducing  into 
Russia,  and  which  had  impressed  its  mark  on  that 
monarch's  youthful  liberalism,  as  well  as  on  Speranski's 
plans  for  reform.  It  contained  the  germ  of  a  bitter 
scepticism  with  regard  to  Russian  life,  combined  with 
a  decided  leaning  to  Catholicism.  The  Catholic  propa- 
ganda, which  may  be  reckoned  back  to  the  reign  of 
Peter  II.,  in  the  persons  of  the  Abbe  Jubet,  Princess 
Dolgoroukaia,  and  the  Duke  of  Liria,  had  its  hour  of 
brilliant  triumph  under  Paul  I.  It  had  succeeded  in 
planting  the  influence  of  the  sons  of  Loyola  in  the 
sovereign's  own  circle.  The  split  between  the  upper 
class  of  society  and  the  clergy,  engendered  by  Peter 
the  Great's  reforms,  the  religious  and  moral  disorder 
which  produced  the  Raskoly  favoured  its  action,  and  in 
the  minds  of  Russian  readers  of  Le  Maistre,  Bonald, 
and  Chateaubriand,  the  Jesuit's  doctrine  was  blended 
with  the  idea  of  civilisation,  and  even  with  a  certain 
liberalism  in  which  they  would  gladly  have  sought 
satisfaction.         « 


TCHADAIEV  193 

Tchadaiev  had  fought  through  Napoleon's  wars.  He 
had  spent  the  years  between  1821  and  1826  abroad, 
had  Hved  on  intimate  terms  with  Schelling  in  Germany, 
and  entered  into  friendly  relations  with  Lamennais, 
Ballanche,  and  the  Comte  de  Circourt,  in  Paris.  The 
conception  of  the  past  and  future  of  his  country,  to 
which  he  had  allowed  the  influence  of  these  surround- 
ings to  lead  him,  may  be  thus  summed  up  :  Up  to  the 
present,  Russia  has  been  no  more  than  a  parasite  branch 
of  the  European  tree,  which  has  rotted  because  it  drew 
its  sap  from  Byzantium,  useless  to  the  cause  of  civilisa- 
tion, a  stranger  to  the  great  religious  structure  of  the 
Western  Middle  Ages,  and  afterwards  to  the  lay  enfran- 
chisement of  modern  society.  ^^  Alone  in  the  worldy  we 
have  given  it  nothings  taken  nothing  from  it,  we  have  not 
added  one  idea  to  the  treasury  of  thinking  humanity,  we 
have  given  no  help  towards  the  perfecting  of  human  reason, 
and  we  have  vitiated  everything  that  wisdom  has  bestowed 
upon  us,  .  .  .  VVe  bear  in  our  blood  a  principle  that  is 
hostile  and  refractory  to  civilisation.  We  have  been  born 
into  the  world  like  illegitimate  children,  .  .  .  We  grow,  but 
we  do  not  ripen.  .  .  .  We  advance,  but  sideways,  and 
towards  no  special  goal.  ..." 

Never  in  the  history  of  the  human  conscience  did  the 
instinct  of  self-study  lead  up  to  so  severe  a  verdict.  I  have 
related  how  and  wherefore,  in  pamphlet  or  satire,  detrac- 
tion was  destined  to  preside  over  the  first  lispings  of  free 
thought  in  the  midst  of  that  great  workshop  of  moral  and 
social  reconstruction,  which  the  Russia  of  Peter  the  Great 
had  now  become.  Everywhere  the  labourers  who  pull 
down  walls  clear  the  way  for  the  architect.  Even  Gogol 
and  his  comrades  belong  to  the  first-named  category. 

Yet  Tchadaiev' s  pessimism  was  confined  to  that  which 


194  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

concerns  the  present  and  the  past.  Russia,  in  his  view — 
I  quote  from  one  of  his  letters  to  Alexander  Tourgueniev 
— *'  is  destined  to  supply,  some  day,  the  solution  of  all 
the  intellectual,  social,  and  moral  questions  which  Europe 
now  discusses."  Already,  in  this  Occidental^  we  note  the 
haughty  schemes  of  the  Slavophil,  and  the  gorgeous 
dreams  of  Dostoievski.  Still  one  condition  must  be 
fulfilled,  he  thinks,  before  this  mission  can  be  accom- 
plished—  to  enter  into  communion  with  the  nations 
of  the  W^st.  But  how  ?  By  union  with  the  Western 
Church.  This  reconciliation,  indeed,  appears  to  his 
imagination  on  a  mighty  scale,  borrowed  from  the  vision 
of  Dante  ;  he  dreams  of  a  pope  and  an  emperor,  of 
equally  enlightened  faith  and  wisdom,  who  should  join 
hands,  and  so  govern  the  whole  world. 

It  might  have  been  objected  that  his  conception  of  a 
European  progress  based  on  the  unity  of  the  Christian 
Churches,  had  proved  a  failure  as  early  as  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  that  Russia,  in  adopting  a  principle  already 
abandoned  by  a  good  half  of  Europe,  ran  a  grave  risk 
of  losing  her  bearings.  But  nobody  argued.  It  was 
thought  simpler  to  take  strong  measures  with  him.  The 
Telescope  was  suppressed,  the  editor  exiled  to  Vologda, 
the  censor  who  had  allowed  the  letter  to  pass  dismissed, 
and  its  author  made  over  to  the  care  of  a  mad-doctor. 
And  even  all  this  severity  did  not  allay  the  almost  general 
irritation.  Freed  from  his  strait-waistcoat,  the  philo- 
sopher sought  refuge  in  Paris,  and  in  A  Madman  s 
Apology^  and  other  writings,  which  were  not  published 
till  after  his  death,  he  endeavoured  to  justify  his  con- 
clusions, while  he  somewhat  diminished  the  excessive 
bluntness  and  paradoxical  fulness  of  their  expression. 
He  had  taken   such  pains  to   strike  hard,  that  he  had 


TCHADAi'EV  195 

certainly  failed  to  strike  home.  Even  in  the  ranks  of 
the  university  students,  his  doctrines  encountered  pas- 
sionate resistance  and  contradiction.  But  out  of  the 
very  crash  a  spark  sprang  forth  which  was  to  illumine  the 
intellectual  horizon  of  that  epoch.  Herzen,  Bielinski, 
and  the  Slavophils  of  the  future,  Khomiakov,  Kirieievski, 
and  Akssakov,  all  felt  the  shock,  and  caught  the  flame. 
A  new  impulse  was  imparted  to  the  study  of  the  national 
history  and  of  philosophy.  After  the  year  1840,  Moscow 
had  two  Hegelian  parties,  and  the  national  literature,  in 
the  persons  of  Nadiejdine  and  Bielinski,  soon  mounted 
to  the  highest  peaks  of  contemporary  thought. 

Meanwhile  the  school  of  the  independent  Slavophils 
— Khomiakov,  the  two  Kirieievskis,  and  the  two  Akssa- 
kovs — formed  another  body  of  teaching,  the  legacy  of 
which  was  to  be  gathered  up  and  increased  by  two  gene- 
rations of  thinkers.  The  current  of  ideas  thus  developed 
was  first  of  all  to  find  its  strongest  and  highest  expression 
in  the  domain  of  critical  literature,  because  all  other 
fields  of  investigation  were  vetoed  by  the  censure,  and 
because,  under  its  watchful  eye,  discussions  on  artistic 
subjects  lent  themselves  better  than  any  other  form  of 
writing  to  that  intellectual  cryptography  which  even  now 
remains  a  law  of  necessity  to  the  Russian  press.  For 
the  same  reason,  and  with  the  same  object  of  finding  a 
necessary  outlet,  the  Russian  novel  has  held,  and  still 
holds,  an  exceptional  position,  by  no  means  in  harmony 
with  its  natural  destiny,  in  the  national  literature. 

In  1836  The  Telescope  was  edited  by  Nicholas  Ivano- 
vitch  Nadiejdine  (1804-1856).  He  had  made  his  first 
appearance  as  a  writer  in  the  European  Messenger^  under 
the  pseudonym  of  Niedoumko.  His  encyclopaedic  know- 
ledge, guided  by  a  mind  of  excessive  clearness,  penetra- 


196  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

tion,  and  strength,  soon  permitted  him  to  treat  various 
branches  of  science,  and  almost  to  equal  the  best  Euro- 
pean specialists  of  his  day.  The  most  varied  subjects, 
ethical  and  historical  studies,  philosophy,  ethnography, 
were  handled  by  him  with  equal  success.  As  a  literary 
critic,  he  long  bore  the  reputation  of  being  an  impostor, 
the  savage  and  pedantic  detractor  of  Pouchkine.  He 
did,  in  fact,  judge  that  poet's  earlier  works,  inspired  by 
his  passion  for  Byron,  with  great  severity.  But  he  was 
one  of  the  first,  on  the  other  hand,  to  applaud  Boris 
Godounov.  He  was  the  pupil,  in  philosophy,  of  Oken 
and  Schelling,  and  was  the  hrst  Russian  who  spoke  of 
thought  as  the  soul  of  all  artistic  creation,  and  of  art  as 
the  association  of  thought  with  form.  He  was  the  first, 
too,  to  conceive  the  idea  that  literature,  as  the  expression 
of  the  conscious  feeling  of  a  nation,  is  one  of  the  powerful 
forces  which  leads  a  people  along  the  path  of  its  natural 
development.  He  was  little  understood  ;  he  was  another 
Tchatski. 

Stephen  Petrovitch  Chevirev  (1806-1864),  Professor 
of  Russian  Literature  at  Moscow  University,  and  fellow- 
editor,  with  Pogodine,  of  the  Muscovitey  embodies  the 
very  opposite  extreme  of  contemporary  criticism  and  the 
philosophy  of  art,  as  then  existing.  His  surroundings 
and  natural  inclinations  connected  him  with  the  Slavo- 
phils. His  lectures  contain  a  well-balanced  mixture  of 
fact  and  hypothesis,  to  both  of  which  he  attributed  the 
same  dogmatic  value.  He  asserted,  with  equal  assurance, 
that  Vladimir  Monomachus  was  the  author  of  a  curious 
Precept  intended  for  the  use  of  his  children,  and  that 
Hegel's  teaching  was  founded  on  a  set  of  ideas  developed 
by  Nikifor  in  an  epistle  to  the  said  Vladimir.  His  History  of 
Poetry  among  Ancient  and  Moderfi  Nations  (Moscow,  1835) 


BIELINSKI  197 

would  be  a  useful  compilation,  if  it  were  not  marred  by 
a  fantastic  judgment  and  love  of  paradox,  both  of  the 
most  disconcerting  nature.  These  peculiarities  Chevirev 
applied,  with  equal  severity,  in  his  appreciations  of  con- 
temporary literature.  Pouchkine,  he  said,  would  have 
done  better  to  compose  such  an  one  of  his  poetical  works 
in  prose.  Gogol's  talent,  he  averred,  had  sprung  from 
the  influence  of  the  Italian  painters.  Italian  art  was  this 
learned  oddity's  favourite  hobbyhorse.  To  put  it  plainly, 
he  talked  random  nonsense. 

The  task  of  covering,  under  the  guise  of  literary  criti- 
cism, the  immense  field  thus  opened,  and  in  which 
general  intellectual  chaos  reigned,  was  too  heavy  for 
the  mind  of  the  average  man.  Even  the  great  VisSARiON 
Grigori£vitch  BifiLlNSKi  (1810-1848)  had  difficulty,  for 
a  while,  in  finding  his  true  path. 

The  son  of  a  military  surgeon,  he  was  a  far  from  in- 
dustrious student  at  the  Moscow  University,  and  an  assi- 
duous frequenter  of  the  literary  and  philosophic  coteries 
which  swarmed  in  and  around  its  walls.  The  largest  of 
these  was  presided  over  by  young  Stankievitch — a  rich 
man,  delicate  in  health,  a  dreamer,  bitten  with  art  and 
humanitarian  notions.  The  members  met  in  his  house, 
and  talked  philosophy  over  the  samovars.  The  kindly 
host  knew  his  Schelling  and  Hegel  by  heart,  and  guided 
his  guests  through  that  world — so  new  to  them — of 
abstract  conceptions.  His  works,  in  poetry  and  prose, 
were  not  published  until  1890.  They  prove  his  posses- 
sion of  a  lofty  spirit,  a  generous  soul,  a  moderate  intelli- 
gence, and  a  middling  talent.  According  to  the  memory 
of  him  preserved  by  his  contemporaries,  Stankievitch's 
ruling  qualities  were  simplicity  and  kind  -  heartedness. 
Herzen  wrote  of  him  that  even  Tolstoi  could  have  de- 


198  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

tected  ^^r^o  phrases  in  his  mouth."  He  wrote  little, — had 
no  time,  alas  !  in  his  short  life,  to  pile  volume  on  volume. 
But  he  was  the  Maecenas,  and  the  intellectual  interpreter, 
of  a  whole  generation. 

From  1834  onwards,  Bielinski,  with  the  Akssakov 
brothers  and  the  poets  Kliouchnikov  and  Krassov,  was 
numbered  among  Stankievitch's  guests.  Bielinski  was  at 
that  time  making  his  first  appearances  in  literary  criticism 
in  The  Molva  (^'  Rumour")  and  The  Telescope.  He  might 
have  been  taken  then  to  be  a  mere  successor  of  Polevoi', 
with  the  same  romantic  spirit,  the  same  fashion  of  looking 
on  the  artist  or  the  poet  as  a  being  apart, — a  believer 
struggling  with  his  own  imagination  and  the  general 
stupidity  ;  the  same  instinct  of  general  denial. 

This,  the  great  critic's  first  campaign,  insufficiently 
prepared  and  ill  directed,  was  checked,  in  1836,  by  the 
suppression  of  The  Telescope.  The  catastrophe  left  Bie- 
linski without  any  means  of  support  whatever.  He  fell 
sick,  contrived — thanks  to  the  help  of  friends — to  go 
through  a  cure  in  the  Caucasus,  and  did  not  reappeai*  in 
Moscow  until  1838.  During  this  interval,  a  little  revo- 
lution had  taken  place  in  the  coterie  of  which  Stankie- 
vitch  still  remained  the  centre.  Schelling  had  been 
dethroned  by  Hegel  and  Fichte,  and  every  member  was 
expected  to  pay  his  homage  to  '^concrete  reality." 

Dazzled  by  the  brightness  of  the  new  revelation, 
conquered  by  the  powerful  logic  of  its  arguments,  un- 
able to  recognise  the  essential  contradictions  it  involved, 
Bielinski  submitted  blindly,  took  Chevirev's  place  as 
editor  of  the  Muscovite  ObserveVy  and  set  himself  to 
spread  the  new  tenets.  He  took  the  famous  phrase, 
^^  Everything  which  is,  is  reasonable,"  in  its  literal  sense, 
and  worshipped  every  manifestation  of  reality,  including 


% 


BIELINSKI  199 

despotism  and  serfdom.  He  preached  the  doctrine  of 
"  Hindoo  quietism,"  and  the  avoidance  of  all  protest  and 
every  struggle.  He  proscribed,  in  artistic  matters,  all 
direct  participation  in  surrounding  life,  whether  political 
or  social.  He  v^ould  have  excluded  all  satiric  and  even 
all  lyric  poetry.  The  only  works  of  art  to  which  he 
would  ascribe  an  artistic  value  were  those  which  em- 
bodied the  expression  of  an  objective  and  Olympian  view 
of  life.  But  he  was  soon  to  be  forced  to  the  conviction 
that  this  doctrine  was  creating  a  void  in  the  neighbour- 
hood of  The  Observer,  In  1839  there  were  no  more  sub- 
scribers, and  the  review  ceased  to  appear.  Bielinski, 
to  support  himself,  left  Moscow,  and  accepted  an  invi- 
tation to  become  a  contributor  to  the  Annals  of  the 
Fatherland,  in  St.  Petersburg.  But  yet  another  revela- 
tion awaited  him  in  the  chief  capital  city  of  the  Russian 
Empire. 

There  he  saw^  and  touched  a  reality  which  nothing 
on  earth  could  make  ideal,  and  which  had  not  an 
adorable  quality  about  it.  His  first  struggles  with  it 
wounded  him  sorely,  and  broke  down  his  faith.  Bielinski 
was  of  an  age  and  temperament  which  made  any  con- 
version both  swift  and  easy.  Suddenly  the  literary  critic 
took  on  the  functions  of  an  eager  publicist,  who,  from 
analysing  works  of  art,  proceeded  to  analyse  the  society 
of  which  those  works  are  but  the  expression,  denouncing 
and  stigmatising  its  lack  of  intellectual  interests,  its  spirit 
of  routine,  the  narrow  selfishness  of  its  middle  class,  the 
dissipation  of  its  provincial  life,  the  general  dishonesty 
of  its  dealings  with  inferiors.  A  not  less  radical  but 
logical  change  also  occurred  in  his  aesthetic  views,  and 
in  his  literary  sympathies  and  antipathies.  He  was 
observed,  not  without  astonishment,  to  praise  contem- 
14 


200  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

porary  French  writers  for  the  interest  they  took  in 
current  events,  to  fall  into  admiration  before  the  works  of 
George  Sand,  whose  talent  he  had  hitherto  utterly  denied. 
He  went  further  ;  he  actually  extolled  Herzen  !  He  was 
a  follower  of  Hegel  still,  but  with  a  new  interpretation 
of  his  doctrine,  a  new  conception  of  the  elements  which 
go  to  the  constitution  of  any  reality,  and  a  new  power 
of  making  the  necessary  distinction  between  the  evil 
and  the  good  therein.  The  doctrine,  thus  modified, 
gave  him  the  historic  sense,  taught  him  the  laws  of 
literary  development,  of  which  he  had  hitherto  been 
ignorant,  and  made  him  repent  of  having  so  lately  pro- 
claimed that  Russian  literature  had  no  real  existence. 
By  the  year  1844,  he  was  in  a  position  to  appreciate 
Pouchkine's  work,  and  that  of  several  of  the  poet's 
predecessors,  at  their  proper  value ;  and  the  eighth 
volume  of  his  works,  which  corresponds  with  this  date, 
comprises  a  complete  history  of  the  national  literature 
from  Lomonossov's  time  down  to  that  of  the  author  of 
Eugene  Onieguine. 

At  this  point  he  wielded  considerable  influence.  It 
may  fairly  be  said  that  the  constellation  of  great  writers 
of  the  day,  among  whom  are  numbered  Gogol,  Grigoro- 
vitch,  Tourgueniev,  Gontcharov,  Nekrassov,  and  Dos- 
toievski,  was  trained  in  his  school.  And  this  school, 
by  virtue  of  the  realistic  tone  which  governs  it,  is  likewise 
the  school  of  the  great  German  philosopher,  although  in 
Gogol's  case,  realism,  as  I  have  already  endeavoured  to 
point  out,  must  be  regarded  as  being  for  the  most  part 
an  indigenous  product  of  the  author's  nature. 

The  two  currents  met.  In  1846,  after  a  fresh  visit 
to  Southern  Russia,  necessitated  by  the  state  of  his 
health,  which  was  going  from  bad  to  worse,  Bielinski 


BlfiUNSKI  20I 

gave  his  assistance  in  editing  The  Contemporary  (Sov- 
remiennik)^  which  now  employed  the  best  Hterary 
talent  of  the  country,  under  the  direction  of  N.  A. 
Nekrassov  and  I.  I.  Panaiev.  In  its  columns,  he  broke 
several  lances  in  defence  of  Gogol,  and  the  new  artistic 
formula  of  which  he  took  the  author  of  Evenings  at  the 
Farm  of  Dikanka  to  be  the  bearer.  But  all  this  time, 
he  was  drifting  into  sour  and  violent  radicalism.  His 
enforced  and  unpleasant  relations  with  official  circles  in 
St.  Petersburg,  together  with  a  longer  and  more  practical 
acquaintance  with  his  own  profession,  made  him  more 
and  more  clearly  aware  of  the  incompatibility  between  an 
influential  and  independent  literature,  and  the  despotic 
power  of  which  he  had  formerly  declared  himself  an  ad- 
herent. And  as  he  could  not  renounce  any  principle 
without  deducing  all  that  was  consequent  on  the  act,  he 
was  led  to  adopt  the  demeanour  of  a  revolutionary.  He 
was  nicknamed  "The  Russian  Marat,"  and  the  com- 
mandant of  St.  Petersburg  never  met  him  without 
jokingly  inquiring,  "  When  shall  we  have  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  you  ?  I  am  keeping  a  good  warm  dungeon 
for  you  ! " 

The  last  years  of  his  life  were  haunted  by  the  terror 
of  this  fate,  and  but  for  the  consumptive  malady  which 
carried  him  off  in  March  1848,  at  the  age  of  thirty-eight, 
it  would  certainly  have  become  a  reality.  His  was  an 
eager  passionate  nature.  He  always  followed  his  con- 
victions to  the  bitter  end,  and  they  were  not  less  sincere 
for  being  so  often  changed.  According  to  the  testimony 
of  his  friend  Panaiev,  he  never  could  see  his  own  articles 
of  the  previous  year  in  the  columns  of  the  Annals  of 
the  Fatherland  without  falling  into  a  fury.  He  was  par 
excellence  an  idealist  and  speculative  theorist.     One  day, 


202  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

in  answer  to  a  friend  who  reminded  him  of  the  dinner 
hour,  he  broke  out,  ''  What  !  we  have  not  yet  settled 
the  question  of  God's  existence,  and  you  talk  about 
eating!"  In  his  first  stage.  Romanticism  led  him  to 
the  exaltation  of  individualism  in  himself  and  others, 
and  to  a  contempt  for  humanity.  Then  he  lost  himself 
in  Hegelian  philosophy,  as  though  in  a  forest.  He  may 
well  be  excused.  The  whole  of  Germany  shared  his 
condition  for  a  while,  and  first-class  intellects  in  every 
country  have  hesitated  as  to  the  interpretation  of  a 
system  w^hich,  while  it  made  art  consist  in  the  realisa- 
tion of  the  ideas  of  beauty  and  truth— that  is,  in  an 
abstraction— claimed  to  establish  the  fact  that  beauty 
and  truth  could  not  exist,  except  in  concrete  phenomena. 
Such  contradictions  caused  no  difficulty  to  Skankievitch 
and  his  friends.  They  were  all  young  men,  drunk  with 
philosophy.  They  accepted  everything  together  —  the 
concrete  nature  of  truth,  the  logical  method  of  thought, 
the  law  of  logical  development  which  was  to  unify  all 
the  phenomena  of  life — and  never  troubled  themselves 
about  the  details.  In  the  end  Bielinski  showed  more 
discernment ;  but,  after  the  obscurity  of  the  doctrine 
had  kept  him  oscillating  between  absolute  indifference 
to  social  problems  and  passionate  interest  in  them,  it 
drove  him,  at  last,  to  confound  society  itself  with  litera- 
ture. 

He  was  always  convinced  he  was  right,  and  that, 
when  he  altered  his  opinion,  he  was,  in  his  own  words, 
''changing  a  kopek  for  a  rouble."  And  amidst  all  the 
chops  and  changes  of  his  mobile,  restless,  and  ill-con- 
trolled mind,  he  succeeded  not  only  in  making  great  indi- 
vidual progress,  but  in  causing  considerable  progress  in 
those  about  him.     To  understand  the  relative  value  of 


TCHERNICHEVSKI  203 

such  a  man  as  Dierjavine,  and  make  others  understand  it, 
was  a  great  thing  in  itself.  He  did  more.  By  his  own 
unaided  intellectual  labour  he  provided  his  countrymen 
with  a  starting-point  on  every  ulterior  line  of  literary 
criticism  and  artistic  philosophy — the  idealist  and  meta- 
physical Hegelian  School,  of  which  the  most  striking 
figures  were  Droujinine,  Akhchsaroumov,  N.  Soloviov, 
and  Edelsohn  ;  the  theory  of  organic  criticism,  wherein 
some  of  the  Slavophils,  I.  Kirieievski,  C.  Akssakov,  and 
especially  A.  Grigoriev,  endeavoured  to  reconcile  art 
and  the  national  element  ;  and  the  doctrine  of  the  critical 
publicists,  which  Dostoievski  was  to  raise  to  the  level 
of  his  own  talent,  and  which  Pissarev,  following  after 
Tchernichevski,  was  to  cast  into  the  lowest  depths  of 
ribald  controversy. 

Two  writers  of  very  dissimilar  value  succeeded 
him  on  The  Contemporary.  NICHOLAS  Gavrillovitch 
Tchernichevski  (1828-1889),  philosopher,  economist, 
critic,  and  novelist,  has  been  called  ^'the  Robespierre 
of  Russia."  He  might  have  been  more  fairly  compared 
with  Mill,  Proudhon,  or  Lassalle.  The  man  so  described 
has  left  us,  in  his  scientific  treatises,  the  theory  or  com- 
pendium of  Russian  radicalism,  and  in  a  heavy  novel 
written  in  his  prison,  he  has  left  us  its  poem  or  gospel. 

For  some  time  the  Censure  took  no  notice  of  him. 
In  face  of  the  philosophic  propaganda  of  which  Herzen 
had  made  London  the  centre,  the  Government  had  real- 
ised that  scissor-thrusts  and  sentences  of  banishment 
were  but  a  poor  defence.  To  equalise  the  struggle, 
it  had  become  necessary  to  unbind  the  hands  of  the 
writers  already  beyond  the  frontiers,  and  use  them 
against  the  terrible  assault  now  being  delivered  from 
without.     Thus  the  press  enjoyed  a  relat^-e  amount  of 


204  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

liberty,  and  Tchernlchevski,  ungovernable  as  he  was, 
made  heavy  claims  on  the  common  freedom.  As  a  re- 
sult, there  was  a  fresh  contact  with  the  West,  and  a  fur- 
ther influx  of  foreign  influence — principally  EngHsh — 
in  consequence.  Thanks  to  Herzen,  still,  London  was 
for  some  time  the  intellectual  centre,  whither  men  be- 
took themselves  in  search  of  light.  A  considerable 
number  of  novels  on  social  subjects,  and  the  works  of 
Mill,  Buckle,  Vogt,  Moleschott,  Ruge,  and  Feuerbach 
were  translated. 

Tchernichevski  did  all  he  could  to  stimulate  this  cur- 
rent, and,  with  the  turn  of  mind  to  which  I  have  referred, 
the  use  he  made  of  it  may  be  easily  divined.  He  pro- 
gressively emphasised  Bielinski's  radicalism.  In  some 
of  his  pamphlets,  published  at  Vevey  and  Geneva,  he 
even  went  so  far  as  to  preach  the  annihilation  of  indi- 
vidual property,  the  suppression  of  the  aristocracy,  and 
the  disbanding  of  the  army.  He  was  willing,  as  a  pro- 
visional arrangement,  to  maintain  the  existence  of  the 
throne,  but  he  would  have  hedged  it  round  with  demo- 
cratic institutions.  These  pamphlets  were  not  allowed 
to  reach  the  eye  of  the  Censure,  but  a  certain  amount 
of  their  teaching  became  apparent  in  articles  in  The  Con- 
temporary^ and  the  Government  made  up  its  mind  to 
take  proceedings.  In  1862  the  daring  editor  was  sent 
to  Siberia,  and  there,  in  prison,  he  wrote  his  novel  What 
is  to  be  done  ?  which  was  for  years  to  be  the  gospel  of  the 
revolutionary  youth  of  his  country.  The  only  value  of  the 
work,  which  is  equally  devoid  of  poetry  and  art,  lies  in  the 
doctrines  it  evolves,  and  these  possess  neither  originality, 
moderation,  nor  practicality.  They  are  all  in  the  sense  of 
equality  and  communism,  and  drawn  from  German,  Eng- 
lish, or  French  authors,  their  only  spice  of  special  flavour 


DOBROLIOUBOV  205 

being  due  to  that  kind  of  mystic  and  visionary  realism 
which  has  since  become  the  characteristic  mark  of  Rus- 
sian Nihihsm.  Tchernichevski  may  fairly  be  considered,  if 
not  as  the  creator,  at  all  events  as  the  most  responsible 
propagator  of  that  mental  condition  which  is  born  of  the 
two  contrary  leanings  of  the  Russian  national  tempera- 
ment :  I  mean  realism,  and  the  taste  for  the  absolute. 

This  book  was  also  his  literary  and  political  Will  and 
Testament.  After  twenty  years  in  Siberia,  seven  of  them 
spent  at  hard  labour  in  the  mines,  and  the  remainder  in 
one  of  the  settlements  nearest  to  the  Polar  Circle,  there 
could  be  no  question  of  any  recommencement  of  his 
literary  career  when  he  was  released  in  1883.  Aged, 
broken  in  health,  he  spent  the  closing  years  of  his  life  in 
translating  Weber's  Universal  History.  By  his  literary 
criticisms  he  had  contributed  to  destroy  that  Hegelian 
philosophy  of  beauty  of  which  Bielinski  himself  had 
already  undertaken  the  destruction,  after  having  pledged 
it  his  faith.  But  he  was  totally  devoid  of  the  aesthetic 
sense,  and,  after  1858,  his  contributions  to  The  Contem- 
porary in  this  department  had  been  almost  entirely  re- 
placed by  those  of  another  person. 

It  was  Nicholas  Alexandrovitch  Dobrolioubov 
(1836-1860)  who  followed  him,  for  all  too  short  a  period. 
His  was  one  of  the  saddest  destinies  to  be  discovered 
in  the  history  of  any  nation.  His  childhood  was  joyless, 
his  youth  knew  no  pleasures  ;  he  led  the  life  first  of  a 
convict,  and  next  of  an  ascetic.  And  then,  after  a  few 
years  of  excessive  toil,  which  was  to  wear  out  the  frail 
husk  of  his  over-eager  spirit,  death  came.  The  knell  of 
every  ambition  sounded  for  him,  just  as  the  first  rays  of 
glory  touched  that  long-despised  brow. 

The  writings  of  this  unhappy  man,  gloomy  and  exag- 


2o6  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

gerated  in  tone,  bear  the  impress  of  this  excess  of  misfor- 
tune. It  is  the  work  of  a  monk  who  would  fain  draw 
down  the  whole  of  humanity  to  the  level  of  his  own 
renunciation.  Dobrolioubov,  to  whom  life  had  never 
given  anything,  never  seemed  to  realise  that  it  might 
have  something  to  bestow  on  others.  Self-immolation 
for  the  common  good  was  in  his  eyes  not  only  an  ideal, 
but  a  laW;  which  he  desired  to  impose  on  every  one. 
His  aesthetic  notions  lacked  clearness,  consistency,  and, 
as  a  rule,  novelty.  From  Bielinski  he  borrowed  his 
last  formula,  ^*  Art  for  art's  sake  "  ;  from  Tchernichevski 
his  conception  of  an  art  ruled  by  science,  and  was 
inspired  by  it  to  raise  up  poets  who,  like  Shakespeare, 
Dante,  Goethe,  and  Byron,  each  represents,  in  his  own 
epoch,  a  level  of  human  consciousness  far  above  that  of 
common  men. 

But  he  had  some  original  views  of  his  own,  as,  for 
example,  on  the  permanent  existence  in  analogous  social 
formations  of  certain  social  types.  In  this  connection 
his  analysis  of  Gontcharov's  novel  Obloniov,  and  his  two 
articles  on  Ostrovski's  plays,  should  be  mentioned. 

In  his  case,  too,  literary  criticism  was  no  more 
than  the  dust-coloured  mantle  under  whiph  those  who 
attacked  the  social  and  political  world  of  that  period 
endeavoured  to  escape  the  vigilant  eye  of  the  police.  In 
this  matter  he  atoned  for  the  frequent  excesses  of  a 
judgment  which  was  severe  and  implacable  even  to  in- 
justice, by  an  intense  depth  of  feeling,  and  an  admirable 
sincerity.  It  was  as  though  he  had  dipped  his  pen  in 
his  own  blood.  And  if  there  is  something  irritating  and 
childish  about  his  system  of  perpetual  denial,  applied  to 
all  the  hallowed  formulae  as  well  as  to  every  established 
authority — Pouchkine's  in  literature,  Pirogov's  in  science 


PISSAREV  207 

— his  not  less  constant  pronouncements  in  favour  of  an 
ideal  world,  to  be  reconstructed  on  the  basis  of  reason, 
nature,  and  humanity,  mark  out  a  programme  which  has 
not  proved  utterly  Utopian.  It  was  to  be  partly  realised 
by  his  own  generation.  The  reform  of  social  relations 
in  Russia  meant,  before  and  above  all  other  things,  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs.  And  Dobrolioubov  died  in 
the  very  year  during  w^hich  one  stroke  of  the  pen  called 
twenty-five  millions  of  slaves  to  liberty. 

Fault  has  been  found  with  the  utilitarian  nature  of 
his  criticism  ;  and  indeed  this  regrettable  but  inevitable 
result  of  the  forced  marriage  between  art  and  politics 
was  to  be  perpetuated  in  contemporary  journalism,  and 
to  be  carried  therein  to  the  worst  and  most  extravagant 
lengths.  Dimitri  Ivanovitch  Pissarev  (1840-1868),  who 
pushed  this  system  of  judging  artistic  production  solely 
by  its  social  or  political  value — from  the  publishing  and 
not  from  the  aesthetic  point  of  view — to  the  utmost  limit 
of  its  necessary  consequence,  ended,  like  Dobrolioubov, 
in  aesthetic  nihilism.  In  the  eyes  of  this  pamphleteer, 
Lermontov  and  Pouchkine  were  ''  caricatures  of  poets," 
''rhymesters  for  consumptive  girls";  and  Goethe  was 
"  a  bloated  aristocrat,  who  reasoned  in  rhyme  on  sub- 
jects which  possess  no  interest."  The  progress  of  natural 
science  he  held  to  be  the  only  thing  that  really  concerned 
the  human  race.  The  expressions  ''  art  "  and  '^  ideal " 
w^ere  senseless  words  to  him.  This  was  to  be  very 
nearly  the  standpoint  taken  up  by  Bazarov^  the  famous 
prototype  of  the  Nihilists  in  Tourgueniev's  novel.  When 
it  appeared,  Pissarev  did  not  fail  to  undertake  the  de- 
fence of  this  character.  He  complacently  played  the 
part  of  the  journalistic  enfant  terrible^  and  therein  dis- 
played considerable  talent,  a  fact  which  may  be  accepted 


2o8  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

as  an  excuse  for  the  huge  success  which  greeted  his 
performances. 

At  the  moment  of  his  greatest  popularity,  which 
coincided  with  that  period  of  extreme  agitation,  political 
and  literary,  known  as  that  of  ''  the  Sixties,"  the  nature 
of  which  I  shall  later  endeavour  to  define,  he  had  rivals, 
and  was  exposed  to  the  literary  criticism  of  such  men  as 
Pypine,  Galakhov,  Tikhonravov,  men  of  a  very  different 
type,  and  of  far  more  serious  weight. 

I  shall  endeavour  to  do  them  justice  at  the  close  of 
this  book,  when  I  give  my  readers  a  general  view  of  the 
latest  manifestations  of  intellectual  life  in  Russia.  I  must 
now  return  to  the  period  preceding  "  the  Forties,"  in 
order  to  examine  briefly  another  current  of  the  great 
march  of  ideas  of  which  it  witnessed  the  development — 
I  mean  ^^  Slavophilism." 


Slavophilism. 

I  have  already  referred  to  the  presence  of  Kirieievski 
and  Akssakov  in  the  coterie  of  Stankievitch  and  Bielinski. 
The  two  schools  possessed,  in  fact,  one  common  start- 
ing-point— the  study  of  German  philosophy  and  the 
worship  of  the  national  element.  This  worship,  of  an- 
cient origin,  was  quite  independent  of  the  Nationalist 
movement,  properly  so  called,  which  was  diffused  through 
Europe  in  later  years  by  the  agency  of  the  German  philo- 
sophy. But  when  the  philosophy  of  Hegel  and  its 
conception  of  the  "  National  idea,"  which  was  to  be 
the  basis  of  the  historical  development  of  nations,  took 
root  in  the  University  of  Moscow,  it  necessarily  drew 
the  local  patriotic  feeling  closer  to  the  great  European 
current.     After  1820,  this  idea  revolutionised  the  whole 


SLAVOPHILISM  209 

Continent,  and  even  stirred  the  semi-barbarous  popula- 
tions of  Greece.  Was  Russia  to  be  the  only  country 
that  did  not  feel  the  concussion  ?  Was  not  she,  too, 
to  find  an  idea  to  develop — her  own  idea — her  intel- 
lectual and  ethical  birthright,  to  be  claimed  in  the  face 
of  all  the  world  ? 

There  is  this  peculiarity  about  the  abstract  world, 
that  we  are  always  sure  of  finding  what  we  want  in  it, 
because  imagination  can  always  supply  what  reality 
lacks.  Trouble  was  lavished  on  every  side,  but  by  the 
time  success  crowned  the  search,  it  had  become  evi- 
dent that  no  concert  existed  between  the  parties.  The 
great  schism  between  the  Occidental  and  the  Slavo- 
phil had  come  into  existence.  In  Tchadaiev's  eyes,  as 
in  those  of  Bielinski,  the  separation  between  Russia  and 
the  other  European  countries  amounted  purely  and 
simply  to  a  difference  of  level,  and  the  object  they 
would  have  pursued  was  to  regulate  this  difference, 
not  by  assimilation  of  the  external  forms  of  European 
civilisation,  but  by  appropriation  of  the  inner  principles 
of  its  development.  The  pride  of  the  founders  of  the 
Slavophil  school  could  not  stomach  this  solution.  They 
desired  an  autonomous  ideal.  Just  at  this  moment  the 
group  accepted,  with  some  grumbling,  a  new  disciple 
of  the  Hegelian  doctrine,  the  youthful  Timofei'  Nicolaie- 
vitch  Granovski  (181 3-1855),  a  friend  of  Bielinski  and 
Herzen,  who,  on  his  return  from  abroad  (1843),  had 
made  a  sensation  in  Moscow  by  his  public  lectures  on 
the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages — a  history  in  which  the 
ancient  glories  of  Moscow  and  of  the  Orthodox  Church 
found  no  place  at  all.  Might  not  Russia,  if  she  grasped 
the  meaning  and  sense  of  her  own  existence,  Slav  and 
Orthodox,  lay  the  foundation,  on  her  own  account,  of  a 


2IO  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

new  phase  in  human  development  ?  Might  she  not 
more  legitimately  aspire  to  the  realisation  of  that  com- 
bination of  the  elements  of  national  culture  to  which 
Germany  alone,  according  to  Hegel,  had  been  called  ? 
But  why  Russia  ?  On  this  point  there  was  grave  dis- 
agreement, even  in  the  bosom  of  the  budding  school. 
Because,  said  some,  she  was  tabula  rasa,  with  no  his- 
torical traditions  to  stand  in  the  way  of  unification. 
Because,  suggested  others,  the  democratic  and  humani- 
tarian ideal  to  be  attained  agreed  with  those  historical 
traditions  whereby  the  Russia  of  Rurik,  of  Vladimir, 
and  Ivan,  equally  escaped  the  religious  autocracy  of 
Rome  and  the  political  autocracy  of  the  Western  states, 
and  rather  approached  the  communistic  system  on  which 
the  social  structure  of  the  future  will  be  based. 

The  providence  which  watches  over  all  faiths  pre- 
vented an  initial  contradiction  from  prejudicing  the 
advent  and  doctrinal  unity  of  this  one.  I.  Kirieievski 
declared  his  adhesion  to  the  theory  ;  Khomiakov  under- 
took to  state  it  dogmatically  ;  Valouiev,  Samarine,  and 
C.  Akssakov  to  justify  it  historically.  The  speculative  ele- 
ments of  the  new  belief  were  to  be  found  in  abundance 
in  the  teachings  of  Schelling  and  Hegel.  For  dogma- 
tic questions,  the  Byzantine  theologians  were  brought 
under  contribution.  Karamzine's  optimistic  treatment  of 
history  did  the  rest. 

In  The  European,  a  publication  which  he  edited  from 
1831  onwards,  Ivan  Vassili^vitch  Kirieievski  (1806-1856) 
had  made  his  first  appearance  in  the  character  of  a  con- 
firmed Occidental.  The  very  name  of  his  newspaper 
proved  the  fact.  The  suppression  of  this  sheet,  owing 
to  the  over-bold  reflections  on  the  future  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  and  the  general  influence  of  his  brother, 


KIRIEIEVSKI:   KHOMIAKOV  211 

Peter  Kiri^ievski  (1808-1846),  an  ethnographer  and  col- 
lector of  popular  songs,  drove  the  silenced  publisher 
in  the  direction  of  the  Slavophil  party.  After  1856,  this 
party  had  its  own  special  organ,  the  Russian  Discourse 
{Rousska'ia  Biessiedd),  and  in  two  important  critiques — 
''On  the  Nature  of  European  Culture"  and  ''On  the 
Necessity  and  Possibility  of  New  Philosophical  Prin- 
ciples"— published  in  its  columns,  Ivan  Vassilievitch  for- 
mulated a  kind  of  Greco-Slav  neo-philosophy.  European 
culture,  he  held,  had  reached  the  end  of  its  career  and 
the  limit  of  its  development,  without  having  succeeded 
in  giving  humanity  anything  beyond  a  sense  of  self- 
discontent  and  a  consciousness  of  its  inability  to  satisfy 
its  own  longings.  The  antique  world  had  already  found 
itself  in  the  same  condition  of  internal  bankruptcy, 
and  had  endeavoured  to  escape  by  borrowing  fresh 
vital  principles  from  nations  whose  past  history  pos- 
sessed no  glorious  pages.  The  modern  European  world 
was  to  recommence  this  experience,  and  cast  itself  into 
the  arms  of  the  Slavo -Greek,  Russian,  and  Orthodox 
communion. 

Thus  prophesied  Kirieievski.  Alexis  Stefanovitch 
Khomiakov  (1804-1860)  followed  him,  in  an  endeavour 
to  state  the  reasons  of  the  prophet's  dictum.  Khomiakov 
was  a  poet,  and  poets  are  never  short  of  reasons.  His 
tragedies  Yermak  and  The  Mock  Demetrius^  written  in 
his  youth,  almost  place  him  on  the  same  level  as  Kou- 
kolnik.  We  note  the  same  pompous  enthusiasm  for 
ancient  Russia,  with  all  its  silly  tendencies,  and  the  same 
stiff  rhetoric.  His  poems  give  proof  of  greater  maturity, 
but  of  an  utter  absence  of  sentiment  and  art.  Those 
which  attracted  most  attention  were  written  during  the 
Crimean  War,  and  contain  an  assortment  of  disserta- 


2  12  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

tions  on  the  theory  of  the  union  of  all  the  Slav  races 
and  the  repudiation  of  "the  Western  yoke."  The  poet 
loved  argument.  He  was  born  to  be  a  theologist.  After 
1855  he  devoted  himself  entirely  to  that  line,  and  pub- 
lished abroad,  in  French  and  English,  a  series  of  books 
and  tracts,  such  as  Some  Words  on  the  Western  Churches ^ 
by  an  Orthodox  Ch'istian  (Leipzig,  1855) ;  The  Latin 
Church  and  Protestantism  from  the  Standpoint  of  the 
Eastern  Church  (Leipzig,  1858,  and  Lausanne,  1872).  I. 
Samarine,  who  was  his  publisher,  treated  the  author  as 
a  ''  Doctor  of  the  Church,"  and  in  his  own  way,  Kho- 
miakov  deserved  the  honour.  To  the  moribund  world 
of  the  Romano-German  (Catholic  and  Protestant)  civi- 
lisation, he  opposed  the  '^idea,"  still  in  course  of  de- 
velopment, of  the  Greco -Slavonic  world,  which  was 
shortly  to  found  a  religious  community  within  whose 
bosom  all  the  children  of  Europe  should  find  shelter 
— the  heaven-sent  instrument  of  a  fusion  which  was  to 
harmonise  all  the  bitter  antagonisms  of  Russian  life. 
And  as  a  further  demonstration  of  the  merits  of  this 
perfect  agreement  with  the  traditions  and  habits  of  his 
country,  Khomiakov  openly  blamed  the  reforms  of  Peter 
the  Great,  and  boldly  wore  the  kaftan  and  the  mour- 
molkay  the  symbolic  value  of  which  articles  of  dress  he 
had  learnt  from  his  friends  Valoniev  and  L  Samarine. 

Dmitri  Valoniev,  who  was  prematurely  cut  off  by 
death  in  1845,  was  the  statistician  and  ethnographer 
of  the  group.  His  study  of  comparative  statistics  had 
brought  him  to  the  conclusion  that  the  natural  out- 
come of  Western  civilisation  must  necessarily  be  moral 
sybaritism,  and  from  this  conclusion  he  deduced  the 
necessity  for  Russia  to  move  along  some  other  path. 
There  was  plenty  of  choice  before  her.      At  the  very 


THE  AKSSAKOVS  213 

starting-point  of  her  history  she  had  realised  the  true 
principle  of  a  Christian  society  and  a  Christian  state,  of 
which  the  Western  form  was  a  mere  deformation.  This 
theory,  sketched  out  by  I.  Samarine  in  The  Muscovitey 
in  the  course  of  a  controversy  with  C.  Kaveline,  one  of 
the  contributors  to  The  Contemporary^  was  to  take  definite 
shape  under  the  pen  of  C.  Akssakov. 

According  to  Samarine  (died  1876^  Russian  organisa- 
tion has  always  been  essentially  based  on  the  communal 
system  {obchtchind)^  and  thus  assumed  spontaneously, 
and  from  the  very  outset,  the  form  which  only  now, 
when  it  is  too  late,  is  becoming  the  object  and  ideal  of 
Western  society.  This  conception  of  the  part  which  the 
ancient  Russian  "  commune  "  is  destined  to  play  in  his- 
tory was  to  exercise  considerable  influence  over  the 
solution  of  the  numerous  problems  connected  with  the 
emancipation  of  the  serfs,  and  it  is  on  this  ground  that 
Occidentals  of  the  type  of  Herzen  met  I.  Samarine,  who, 
as  is  well  known,  was  one  of  the  most  active  promoters 
of  this  great  work  of  freedom.  He  played  his  part  both 
in  the  labours  of  the  Commission  appointed  by  Alexan- 
der n.  in  1858,  to  study  the  reform,  and  in  the  contro- 
versy on  economic  and  social  questions  it  engendered. 
He  was  more  a  man  of  letters  than  a  historian,  was  too 
apt  to  supply  the  place  of  knowledge  by  imagination, 
and  was  thus  incapable  of  giving  the  doctrine  that  ap- 
pearance of  solidity  indispensable  to  its  acceptance  by 
the  masses. 

This  work  was  accomplished  by  Constantine  Sergui^i^- 
vitch  Akssakov  (18 17-1860).  This  man  was  an  idealist 
par  excellence^  who  looked  at  his  idea  with  a  lover's  eyes, 
and  gave  it  all  his  devotion.  The  story  goes,  that  he 
never  possessed  any  other  mistress.     The  idea  which  he 


2  14  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

has  succeeded  in  embodying,  in  a  marvellously  subtle 
mixture  of  hallucination  and  real  knowledge,  is  as  follows. 
It  strikes  one  as  a  desperate  paradox  ;  the  word,  perhaps, 
is  scarcely  strong  enough,  but  that  is  no  fault  of  mine. 
The  Russian  State,  the  outcome  of  a  twofold  act  of  free- 
will— the  appeal  to  the  Varegian  princes  and  the  accept- 
ance of  the  Christian  faith — is,  of  all  the  European 
states,  the  only  one  founded  in  its  essential  existence 
and  principle  on  liberty  !  Unlike  the  Western  states, 
which  all  proceed  from  violence,  and  are  led,  by  violence, 
to  political  revolution  and  religious  schism,  the  Russian 
State,  alone,  owes  the  maintenance  of  the  unity  of  the 
faith  and  the  willingly  respected  unity  of  power,  to  its 
own  liberty.  It  was  Akssakov's  pleasing  task,  as  he 
travelled  over  the  whole  history  of  the  nation,  to  shed 
light  upon  the  successive  manifestations  of  this  excep- 
tional phenomenon,  the  childlike  docility  with  which  it 
accepted  baptism,  and  the  constant  exemplifications  of 
the  close  union  between  the  sovereign  and  his  people, 
bound  together  in  a  common  faith  and  common  customs. 

To  put  life  into  his  theory,  he  had  recourse  to  poetry 
and  the  drama,  drawing  in  The  Prince  Loupouvitski 
and  in  Moscow  Delivered  in  i8i2j  the  contrast  between 
the  healthy  naturalness  of  the  people,  and  the  corrupt 
culture  of  the  upper  classes.  There  is  more  poetic 
talent  in  his  studies  of  history  and  literary  critiques. 
He  died  of  consumption  in  the  island  of  Zante,  and  left 
the  leadership  of  the  Moscow  group  of  the  Slavophil 
party  to  his  brother  Ivan  (i 823-1886),  the  least  gifted, 
certainly,  but  yet,  thanks  to  his  practical  mind  and  first- 
rate  talent  as  a  writer,  the  most  popular  and  influential 
member  of  his  family. 

Ivan  Serguiei^vitch  Akssakov,  too,  began  as  a  poet,  then 


THE  AKSSAKOVS  215 

collaborated  with  the  Imperial  Geographical  Society,  and 
published  an  excellent  monograph  on  the  Ukraine  fairs. 
In  1861  he  became  editor  of  a  succession  of  Slavo- 
phil publications,  all  democratic  and  Panslavist  in  their 
tendency,  such  as  The  Day,  Moscow,  &c.,  which  dis- 
appeared, one  after  the  other,  under  the  rod  of  the  Cen- 
sure. Not  that  they  contained  revolutionary  teachings. 
The  fault  found  with  Ivan  Serguieievitch  was  rather  that 
he  was  more  royalist  than  the  king  himself.  He  was 
banished  in  consequence  of  a  speech  made  on  June 
22,  1878,  at  a  meeting  of  the  ''  Slav  Committee"  of  Mos- 
cow. In  it  he  had  thundered  against  the  "infamy"  of 
the  Berlin  Congress  and  the  "  treason  "  of  the  Russian 
diplomats  attending  it,  who  had  plotted  the  shame 
of  their  country.  After  1880  he  directed  The  Rouss,  a 
weekly  publication,  in  which  he  principally  occupied 
himself  in  waging  war  with  the  Liberalism  of  St.  Peters- 
burg. 

The  fundamental  error  of  this  school  consists,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  in  the  origin  it  attributes  to  the  *^  National 
idea." 

The  Kiri^ievskis  have  fancied  they  discovered  this  in 
the  reality  of  an  historical  past  which  had  been  care- 
lessly studied,  whereas  it  really  was  an  abstract  pro- 
duct of  their  own  imaginations,  and  more  than  half 
Western,  to  boot, — the  fruit  of  their  intercourse  with 
foreign  philosophy.  Tchernichevski  had  undertaken  to 
convince  them  that  this  very  portion  of  their  theory, 
which  insisted  on  the  corruption  of  the  West  and  its 
incapacity  for  any  ulterior  development,  was  itself  of 
Western  origin,  not  borrowed,  indeed,  from  the  great 
thinkers  of  France  and  Germany,  but  from  the  second- 
rate  philosophers  of  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  the  Revue 
15 


2i6  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Contemporaine  and  the  Revue  de  Paris.  An  idea^  supported 
by  arguments  drawn  from  this  doubtful  source,  could  not 
stand  the  test  of  a  more  thorough  study  of  the  past. 
No  sooner  did  it  come  into  contact  with  the  truth  of  the 
national  history,  as  unveiled  by  Karamzine's  successors, 
than  it  faded  out,  killed  by  such  facts  as  The  Raskoly 
which  expressly  demonstrates  the  impossibility  of  the 
supposed  existence,  centuries  old,  of  a  state  of  religious 
unity.  And  the  only  manner  in  which  the  Slavophil 
school  has  been  able  to  maintain  its  ideal,  and  deduce  a 
civilising  principle  from  it,  is  by  abstracting  these  reali- 
ties and  turning  history  into  romance. 

Every  nation,  indeed,  has  passed  through  the  same 
ideological  crisis ;  it  is  a  disease  connected  with  the 
growth.  In  France  it  was  very  apparent  during  the 
sixteenth  century,  when  Hotman,  a  Swiss,  advocated  a 
return  to  the  traditions  of  ancient  Gaul.  Russian  Slavo- 
philism is  also  connected,  by  sympathy  and  synchrony, 
with  a  huge  wave  of  European  movement ; — the  national 
renaissance  in  Bohemia,  inaugurated  by  Dobrovski, 
Szafarzyk,  and  Kollar ;  the  Illyrianism  diffused  among 
the  Southern  Slavs  by  Louis  Gay  ;  the  patriotic  mysti- 
cism of  Mickcewicz,  Towianski,  and  Slowacki ;  Germano- 
philism,  a  century  and  a  half  old,  but  active  still ;  and 
the  struggle  of  the  old  national  party  against  liberal- 
ism in  Denmark.  Khomiakov  had  wound  up  his  Euro- 
pean tour  by  a  visit  to  the  Slav  countries,  and  had 
entered  into  personal  relations  with  the  principal  leaders 
of  the  national  propaganda  there. 

His  efforts,  and  those  of  his  fellow-believers,  have 
not  been  entirely  barren.  If  they  have  not,  as  some 
of  them  have  too  ambitiously  boasted,  made  the  study 
of  the  fundamental  features  of   the  national  character 


SLAVOPHILISM  217 

an  indispensable  feature  of  this  period,  they  have,  at 
all  events,  imparted  a  fresh  impulse  to  their  consider- 
ation. We  have  already  noted  that  in  artistic  literature 
a  movement  in  that  direction  had  taken  place,  pre- 
viously and  independently.  And  with  the  exception 
of  Dostoievski,  the  school  has  not,  as  yet,  produced  any 
good  writer  in  this  particular  line.  Tourgueniev  did  not 
belong  to  it,  and  when  Gogol  joined  it,  the  sun  of  his 
artistic  power  had  set.  But  from  the  social  and  scientific 
point  of  view,  the  Kirieievskis  and  the  Akssakovs  may 
claim  other  titles  to  glory.  It  is  much  to  have  pointed 
to  the  popular  element  as  the  basis  of  social  develop- 
ment, and  the  vital  principle  of  the  national  life,  at  a 
moment  when  the  people  of  the  country  actually  pos- 
sessed no  legal  existence.  The  assertion  caused  a  change 
in  the  direction  of  the  study  of  the  nation's  past,  and  the 
great  school  of  history,  which,  in  the  period  between  1840 
and  1870,  brought  this  science  in  Russia  to  a  level  w^ith 
that  of  the  West,  was  the  result. 

To  this  Slavophilism  has  contributed,  even  by  its 
errors.  Its  wanderings  through  the  mazes  of  an  imagi- 
nary and  fanciful  history  necessarily  induced  historical 
criticism  and  reconstruction.  Thus  it  was  perceived,  at 
last,  that  Karamzine's  work  must  be  done  again,  and 
also  that  of  M.  Pogodine  (died  1873),  the  defender  of  the 
'^  Norman  theory,"  that  is,  the  Norman  origin  of  the  first 
Varegians,  against  Veneline  (died  1839),  and  his  disciples, 
Saveliev-Rostislavitch  and  Morochkine.  A  Slavophil,  a 
Panslavist,  and  yet  as  fervid  an  admirer  of  Peter  the 
Great  as  N.  Oustrialov  himself,  Pogodine,  that  "  Clio 
in  uniform,  with  the  collar  of  knighthood,"  as  a  German 
critic  called  him,  is  the  vassal,  in  some  respects,  of 
the  patriotically  fervent  mysticism  which  seems  more  or 


2i8  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

less  to  saturate  every  contemporary  school  in  Russia. 
Oustrialov  has  the  advantage  over  him,  in  being  almost 
free  from  it.  In  his  History  of  Russia  and  in  his  six- 
volumed  biography  (unfinished)  of  Peter  the  Great,  both 
of  them  carefully  prepared,  but  devoid  of  any  critical 
instinct,  he  contents  himself  with  being  official.  The 
seven  volumes  of  Pogodine's  works  published  between 
1846  and  1859  are  exceedingly  entertaining  reading,  but 
bear  traces  of  insufficient  scientific  preparation. 

A  great  work  was  begun  in  this  respect  by  the 
establishment,  under  Nicholas  I.,  of  an  Archeographical 
Commission  and  Expedition  ;  by  the  institution  of  pro- 
fessorships of  Slav  philology  in  the  Universities,  and 
by  the  use  made  of  foreign,  and  especially  of  German 
Universities,  for  the  training  of  such  professors.  The 
result  is  seen  in  a  new  generation  of  historians,  of  whom 
the  most  eminent  were  Kalatchov,  Kaveline,  Afanassiev, 
Bousslaiev,  Zabieline,  S.  M.  SOLOVIOV  (1820-1879),  and 
N.  I.  KOSTOMAROV  (1817-1885).  This  was  their  pro- 
gramme :  To  regard  history  as  an  organic  whole,  capable 
of  development  according  to  certain  laws  to  be  fixed ; 
to  give  the  foremost  place  in  the  study  of  this  organic 
whole  to  the  examination  of  its  modes  of  existence, 
poHtical  institutions,  laws,  economy,  manners  and  cus- 
toms. C.  D.  Kaveline  (1818-1855),  who  strove  to  carry 
out  this  programme  in  a  series  of  brilliant  treatises,  has 
touched  on  the  most  interesting  questions  of  the  political 
and  economic  life,  and  also  on  the  general  culture  of  his 
country.  F.  I.  Bousslaiev  (1815-1870)  not  only  imported 
the  comparative  method  into  the  study  of  the  national 
language,  but  also  brought  the  moral  basis  of  the  popular 
feeling,  as  expressed  in  the  national  poetry,  into  strong 
relief. 


SOLOVIOV  219 

Soloviov's  treatise  on  The  Relations  between  the  Russian 
Princes  of  the  House  of  Rurik  (1847)  marked  an  era  in 
Russian  historical  literature.  His  great  History  of  Russia 
in  twenty-nine  volumes,  begun  in  1851,  is  to  this  day 
a  mine  on  which  we  all  draw.  The  last  volumes,  especi- 
ally, are  no  more  than  a  hastily  arranged  collection  of 
material.  Like  a  great  number  of  his  Russian  rivals, 
the  author  planned  a  task  that  was  beyond  human  power. 
His  conception  was  too  vast,  and  his  strength  giving  out 
before  the  work  w^as  completed,  the  house  that  he  began 
like  an  architect  w^as  finished  as  by  a  bricklayer's  labourer. 
But  the  material  is  of  the  finest,  and  in  the  earlier  volumes 
we  see  that  it  has  been  collected  by  a  master-hand.  The 
writer,  in  fact,  belonged  to  no  party  except  that  of  truth. 
There  was  nothing  of  the  professional  political  writer 
about  him,  no  pushing  of  special  tendencies  and  doc- 
trines. Coldly,  conscientiously,  calmly,  he  draws  up 
his  statement ;  and  his  style  suits  his  method — a  little 
dry,  but  admirably  clear,  sober,  and  tranquil.  His 
life  matched  his  work  ;  it  was  one  of  retirement  and 
labour,  utterly  unconcerned  with  external  events,  shut  in 
between  his  study,  his  professorial  chair  at  the  Moscow 
University,  and  his  archives — the  pure  and  noble  figure 
of  a  learned  man. 

N.  I.  Kostomarov,  who,  with  M.  Pogodine,  was  the 
hero  of  the  public  tournament  in  the  amphitheatre  of 
the  St.  Petersburg  University,  which  caused  such  a  stir 
in  March  i860,  is  a  much  more  complex  personage,  with 
a  far  more  varied  career.  Author  of  a  treatise  on  The 
Historical  Meanings  of  Popular  Poetry  (1843),  and  of  a 
Slav  Mythology  (1847),  he  devoted  many  of  his  nume- 
rous monographs  to  literary  and  even  dramatic  subjects. 
At  the  same  time,  he  attempted  novel-writing,  with  The 


2  20  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Son  (1865),  a  fairly  pretty  tale  on  the  subject  of  Stenka 
Razine's  Cossack  rebellion,  and  Koudeiar  (1875),  an  im- 
portant historical  narrative,  founded  on  the  political 
troubles  of  the  sixteenth  century,  which  was  a  com- 
plete failure.  But  contemporary  politics  also  attracted 
Kostomarov.  Science,  in  his  case,  was  an  integral  part  of 
life.  His  studies  of  Little-Russian  poetry  enticed  him  for 
a  moment  into  writing  in  the  language  of  that  country, 
and  in  1847  he  was  suspected,  like  Chevtchenko  and 
Koulich,  of  active  participation  in  the  separatist  move- 
ment. This  earned  him  several  months  of  imprison- 
ment, a  prolonged  banishment  to  Saratov,  and,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  youth  of  that  period,  the  reputation  of  a 
defender  of  liberalism,  and  a  martyr  to  its  cause.  He 
was  pardoned  in  1855,  and  proceeded  to  publish,  in  the 
Annals  of  the  Fatherland,  that  fine  series  of  monographs, 
Bogdane  Khmelnitski,  The  Rebellion  of  Stenka  Razine,  and 
The  Commerce  of  the  Muscovite  State  in  the  Sixteenth  and 
Seventeenth  Centuries^  which  has  crowned  his  reputation 
wqth  glory.  A  little  later,  after  a  stay  abroad,  Kostmarov 
took  an  active  part  in  the  labours  which  led  up  to  the 
enfranchisement  of  the  serfs.  For  a  short  time  he  held 
a  professorship  at  the  University  of  St.  Petersburg,  but 
w^as  obliged  to  vacate  it  in  consequence  of  the  disturb- 
ances among  the  students  in  1862.  His  active  career 
was  now  closed,  but  the  writer  remained.  He  pub- 
lished, at  the  expense  of  the  Archaeographical  Society, 
eleven  volumes  of  documents  bearing  on  the  history 
of  the  south-west  provinces,  and  continued  to  issue 
his  monographs,  which  number  thirteen  all  told.  They 
have,  for  the  most  part,  as  much  romance  as  history 
in  their  composition,  and  are  written,  as  a  rule,  with 
the  object  of  pushing  some  particular  view.     That  de- 


KOSTOMAROV  221 

voted  to  The  Republics  of  Northern  Russia  reveals  the 
author's  sympathy  with  free  institutions,  and  the  demo- 
cratic ideal.  In  others  he  defends  the  ethnographic 
autonomy  of  Little  Russia  with  arguments  more  pas- 
sionate than  sound,  but  his  theories  are  always  served 
by  his  first-rate  talent  as  a  story-teller. 

Kostomarov  supported  the  theory  of  the  federa- 
tive system  in  ancient  Russia,  in  opposition  to  that  of 
C.  Akssakov,  which  attributed  a  preponderating  share 
in  the  organisation  of  the  country  to  the  provincial  par- 
liaments. He  broke  more  than  one  lance  with  Pogo- 
dine  concerning  Rurik's  Norman  origin.  He  joined 
with  Slavophils  of  every  shade  in  defending  liberal 
ideas.  For  from  its  earliest  origin,  the-  school  was 
liberal  and  progressive,  even  in  the  person  of  that 
representative  who,  in  our  day  and  in  its  name,  has 
waved  the  banner  of  reaction  higher  than  all  other 
men.  I  mean  Michael  Katkoff.  And  from  this  school 
was  sent  out,  after  i860,  that  watchword,  ^^  Go  out 
amongst  the  people  ! "  which  has  since  been  so  decried 
and  ridiculed,  but  which  then  stirred  all  that  was  best  in 
the  social  w^orld — the  expression  of  a  deep  and  unerring 
instinct,  the  fruit  of  a  true  conception — that  of  the  neces- 
sity for  gathering  every  social  force  to  labour  for  the 
common  salvation.  P.  Kirieievski's  collection  of  popular 
songs  was  nothing  but  an  excursion  into  the  ranks  of  the 
people,  and  so  were  Rybnikov's  later  journeys  through 
the  province  of  Olonetz,  continued  by  Hilferding,  D. 
Rovinski's  labours  in  the  field  of  popular  iconography, 
and  Tolstoi's  legendary  work  at  lasnaia  Poliana. 

A  short  view  of  the  political  evolution  which  accom- 
panied and  occasioned  these  enterprises,  between  1840 
and  1880,  now  becomes  indispensable. 


22  2  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 


Political  Evolution. 

Slavophilism,  when  it  recognised  a  manifestation  of 
its  "  idea  "  in  the  twofold  emancipatory  movement  which 
parted  the  national  literature  from  the  Western  models, 
and  at  the  same  time  brought  the  masses  nearer  to 
the  hour  of  their  comparative  freedom,  rendered  ser- 
vice, direct  or  indirect,  to  each  of  these  causes.  Un- 
til i860,  Katkov  and  Herzen  marched  hand  in  hand, 
though  the  Russian  frontier  lay  between  them.  That 
special  form  of  the  revolutionary  movement  which 
Tourgueniev  is  said  to  have  dubbed,  in  1862,  with  the 
name  of  Nihilism — the  origin  of  which,  however,  dates 
from  1855 — ^^^  "O^  divide  them.  ''  Nihilism  only  ap- 
peared among  us  because  we  are  all  Nihilists,"  writes 
Dostoievski.  And  indeed,  before  1861,  all  the  more  im- 
portant organs  of  the  press  had  been  gained  over  to  the 
ideas  on  which  the  movement  so  described  was  founded. 
So  long  as  it  confined  itself  to  mere  speculation,  it  alarmed 
nobody,  and  seemed,  indeed,  to  correspond  with  the 
common  aspirations  of  all  liberals. 

The  liberation  of  the  serfs  in  1861  involved  a  sudden 
leap  from  the  empyrean  heaven  of  ideas,  into  the  world 
of  concrete  fact,  and  the  moment  conception  took  tangible 
shape  it  seemed  alive  with  monstrous  forms.  Peasant 
insurrections  in  the  Volga  region  ;  student  riots  at  St. 
Petersburg,  at  Kiev,  at  Kharkov ;  the  appearance  of  the 
"  red  cock," — a  rising  en  masse  of  incendiaries,  followed  by 
others  bearing  bombs — there  was  some  cause  for  alarm. 
Meanwhile  the  press  worked  furiously.  Following  the 
current  of  European  thought,  it  had,  since  1840,  moved 
towards   a  clearer  conception  of   the  problems  calling 


KATKOV  223 

for  solution.  It  had  assimilated  the  successive  develop- 
ments of  the  Hegelian  theory,  the  teachings  of  the 
Positivists,  of  political  economy,  and  sociology.  It  had 
now  reached  the  stage  of  practical  application.  The 
newspapers  were  not  sufficiently  numerous  for  the  work 
to  be  done.  Besides  the  liberal  or  radical  periodicals, 
such  as  I.  Akssakov's  The  Day,  and  Dostoievski's  The 
TiineSj  revolutionary  pamphlets  and  booklets  poured 
forth  in  streams — the  echo  of  the  tocsin  which  Herzen 
continued  to  ring,  deepening  the  universal  mental  con- 
fusion and  agitation.  The  Government  strove  to  create 
a  reaction,  sent  out  still  more  severe  instructions  to 
the  Censure,  suppressed  three  newspapers,  and  arrested 
Tchernichevski.  It  was  all  in  vain.  The  local  press  was 
silenced,  but  the  tocsin  beyond  the  frontier  rang  more 
furiously  than  ever,  and  the  circulation  of  numbers  of 
The  Bell  throughout  the  country,  and  even  in  the  sove- 
reign's own  circle,  proved  a  secret  understanding  with 
English  publicists.  The  very  silence  of  the  press  organs 
gagged  by  the  Censure,  which  soon  became  voluntary 
and  systematic,  tended  to  throw  the  public  yet  more 
completely  under  the  influence  of  this  propaganda  from 
without. 

At  this  moment,  Michael  Katkov  (1820-1887)  re- 
vealed himself  in  a  new  and  unexpected  character.  He 
had  begun  in  the  teaching  career  as  a  professor  at  the 
Moscow  University,  and  had  taken  up  journalism  as  the 
editor  of  the  Russian  Messenger,  the  most  liberal  and 
Anglomaniac  organ  of  the  period.  This  editorship  he 
combined,  in  and  after  1861,  with  that  of  the  Moscow 
Gazette.  In  his  paper  he  defended  the  cause  of  progress, 
expatiated  on  the  advantages  of  self-government  and 
decentralisation,  and  denounced  the  vices  of  despotism, 


224  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

with  unprecedented  boldness.  He  now  became  con- 
vinced that  Herzen,  with  his  friends  Ogariov  and  Bakou- 
nine,  were  leading  liberalism  astray.  And  resolutely, 
formally,  he  broke  the  alliance  which  had  so  long  bound 
him  to  the  too  adventurous  champions  of  a  cause 
which,  he  believed,  they  were  endangering.  He  openly 
denounced  them  as  being  responsible  for  the  unjustifiable 
violence  into  which  a  portion  of  the  progressive  party 
had  allowed  itself  to  be  drawn,  and  also  for  the  measures 
of  repression,  too  justly  deserved,  which  had  been  elicited 
by  it.  He  laid  passionate  stress  on  the  Utopian  and 
chimerical  nature  of  the  conception  of  society  they  pro- 
mulgated. 

The  effect  was  striking.  Instantly  a  nucleus  of 
conservative  resistance  gathered  round  the  bold  con- 
troversialist. The  Polish  insurrection,  which  occurred 
in  the  course  of  the  following  year,  furnished  him  with 
fresh  arguments  and  a  solid  fulcrum,  that  of  the  resistance 
and  rebellion  of  the  national  feeling.  At  the  same  time, 
it  accentuated  the  retrograde  tendency  of  his  group. 
Herzen,  faithful  to  his  own  principles,  risked  his  popu- 
larity on  the  most  dangerous  of  hazards,  by  making 
common  cause  with  the  insurgents.  The  few  liberal 
organs  spared  by  the  Censure,  true  to  their  mutual  under- 
standing, betrayed  a  similar  sympathy  by  their  continued 
silence.  In  the  midst  of  the  lull,  Katkov's  voice  was 
raised  once  more.  In  eloquent  language  he  affirmed 
the  existence  of  a  criminal,  and,  indeed,  a  somewhat 
fictitious,  agreement  between  the  events  actually  taking 
place  at  Warsaw  and  those  with  which  the  revolutionary 
agitation  nursed  by  London  and  Paris  fanatics  threatened 
the  peace  of  Russia.  In  the  name  of  the  national  ideal, 
the  future  of  which  was  threatened,  in  the  name  even  of 


KATKOV  225 

the  ancient  popular  rights,  the  reconstitution  of  which 
in  the  Lithuanian  provinces  would  be  prevented  by 
the  triumph  of  the  Polish  element,  he  demanded  the 
suppression  of  the  insurrection,  and  the  complete  annexa- 
tion of  Poland. 

Such  a  suggestion  as  Katkov's  was  sure  to  find 
numerous  and  willing  hearers.  It  was  echoed  even  in 
the  foremost  ranks  of  the  liberal  party.  Before  very  long, 
the  Russification  and  nationalisation  of  all  the  hetero- 
geneous elements  composing  Catherine  II. 's  mighty 
inheritance  was  to  be  the  common  war-cry  of  all  liberals, 
and  at  their  head,  Katkov,  whose  neo-conservatism  w^as 
gradually  gathering  strength,  exercised  powers  resem- 
bling those  of  a  dictator.  The  Government  itself  had 
to  submit,  and  did  it,  indeed,  with  a  good  grace.  The 
pretensions  of  a  nobility  which  had  suddenly  fallen  in 
love  with  representative  institutions,  and  the  continua- 
tion of  the  enterprises  of  the  revolutionary  party,  which 
culminated,  in  1866,  in  Karakazov's  attempt,  forced  it 
into  the  most  absolutely  reactionary  course.  Mouraviov 
had  no  sooner  finished  his  work  in  Poland,  than  he 
was  summoned  to  repeat  it  on  the  Nihilists  in  Russia. 
Ministers  and  functionaries  of  moderate  views,  Valouiev, 
Golovine,  Prince  Souvorov,  made  way  for  others  of  the 
most  retrograde  opinions,  such  as  Prince  Gagarin  and 
Count  Chouvalov.  An  abyss  yawned,  into  which  the 
whole  of  Katkov's  past  liberalism  fell,  and  left  not  a  trace 
behind.  The  dictator  was  forced  to  obey  the  common 
law  of  popular  movements.  Soon,  leader  though  he 
was,  he  had  to  follow  his  own  soldiers,  and  he  ended, 
from  the  fervent  autonomist  he  had  once  been,  by  being 
the  proscriber  of  all  local  initiative,  as  a  sin  against  the 
rights  of  absolute  monarchy,  as  the  sacrificer  of  every 


226  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

ethnographic  autonomy  on  the  altar  of  national  unity, 
and  finally,  alack  !  as  an  ofttcious  informer,  who  scented 
revolution  and  treason  everywhere,  and,  with  C.  Leontiev, 
as  an  educational  reformer  who  w^ould  have  all  teaching 
brought  back  to  the  classic  traditions,  and  the  superan- 
nuated methods  of  a  bygone  period.  So  thoroughly  did 
he  do  his  work,  that  not  a  sign  remained,  in  his  contem- 
poraries' eyes,  of  the  brilliant  furrow  he  had  traced,  in 
the  early  part  of  his  career,  across  a  period  to  which  I 
shall  rejoice  to  return,  in  order  to  call  up  the  memory 
of  its  artistic  and  intellectual  splendours. 

Yet  in  so  doing  I  shall  not  escape  from  some  of  those 
political  and  scientific  problems  to  w^hich  I  have  just 
referred.  One  of  the  consequences  of  the  regime  im- 
posed on  the  Russian  press  has  been,  and  is,  that  all 
investigations  and  discussions  of  this  nature  are  forced 
into  a  province  not  entirely  fitted  for  them,  that  a  veil  of 
romance  or  poetry  must  be  cast  over  things  and  subjects 
most  unsuited  to  this  treatment,  and  that  the  imagination, 
and  all  the  temptations  connected  therewith,  must  be 
mixed  up  in  questions  which  should  be  treated  by 
methods  of  the  severest  simplicity.  Art  itself  has  had 
reason  to  murmur  against  the  authors  of  these  adul- 
terous unions,  even  when  their  names  were  Gogol  and 
Tourgudniev.  Reason  and  truth  have  suffered  even 
more,  when  the  writer  who  thus  disguised  them  bore 
the  name  of  TolstoiL 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LERMONTOV,  GOGOL,  AND  TOURGUfiNIEV 

Last  winter,  in  the  Parisian  drawing-room  of  a  great 
Russian  lady,  I  was  present  at  the  reading  of  a  French 
translation  of  The  Demon.  The  author's  name  was  un- 
known to  half  of  the  assembled  audience.  The  trans- 
lation, graceful  and  faithful  as  it  was,  could  only  very 
partially  render  the  beauties  of  the  work.  At  first  the 
attitude  of  the  company  was  somewhat  careless,  though 
polite.  But  as  the  incidents  of  the  drama  were  unfolded, 
I  read  in  the  shining  eyes  and  parted  lips  about  me,  that 
the  poet  and  his  interpreter  had  won  over  that  elegant 
swarm  of  gay  and  blase  beings.  "  What  passion  ! "  one 
lady  murmured.  And  she  spoke  truly.  Called  from  the 
wild  slopes  of  the  Caucasian  mountains,  by  the  vivid  ima- 
gination of  Lermontov,  a  torrent  of  burning  lava  flowed 
in  waves  of  harmony  into  the  hearts  of  his  hearers. 

Even  prior  to  this  experience,  I  had  always  declined 
to  follow  tradition  by  placing  this  particular  poet  in  the 
same  pleiad  with  Pouchkine.  To  me  he  seemed  evidently 
to  belong  to  another  intellectual  group,  that  of  Bielinski, 
of  Gogol,  and  of  the  Slavophil  school.  With  a  somewhat 
childish  instinct  of  defiance,  he  has  chosen  to  take  up  a 
certain  number  of  the  subjects  already  treated  by  the 
author  of  Engtne  Onieguinc,  He,  too,  was  resolved  to 
conjure  up  his  Prophet j  who  has  proved  less  of  an  Isaiah 
than  of  a  Jeremiah  or  an  Ezekiel — the  disregarded  bearer 


228  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

of  sublime  truths,  at  whom  men  cast  stones,  and  at  whom 
the  old  point  with  their  fingers,  saying  to  the  children, 
"  See  how  he  is  despised  !  "  Like  Pouchkine,  and  within 
similar  limits,  he  has  felt  the  Byronic  influence,  but, 
unlike  Pouchkine,  he  has  never  cut  himself  off  from  the 
political  and  social  progress  of  his  time,  and  from  the 
problems  therein  to  be  found.  His  despair  and  melan- 
choly arose,  in  part  at  least,  more  out  of  the  common 
sadness  and  alarm  than  out  of  his  own  selfish  disgust, 
and  I  am  not  inclined  to  think  that  if  his  life  had  been 
prolonged,  he  would  have  accepted  clemency,  and  even 
favours,  from  Nicholas,  nor  would  have  appeared  a 
domesticated,  submissive,  and  contented  subject  of  the 
Tsar. 

But  for  Byron,  LermontoV  might  perhaps  have  pro- 
vided the  Slavophil  faith  with  that  complement  of  artistic 
expression  it  still  lacks.  The  poem — I  regard  it  as  his 
master-piece — in  which  he  conjures  up  the  figure  of 
Ivan  Vassilievitch  proves  his  possession  of  the  requisite 
powers.  In  those  of  his  works  (such  as  Ismail-Bey) 
which  are  more  directly  inspired  by  the  English  poet, 
the  Nationalist  tendency  is  still  visible ;  the  West,  doomed 
and  depraved,  gives  way  before  the  regenerating  East. 
In  Sacha — a  posthumous  work,  probably  dating  from 
about  1838 — the  147th  and  148th  lines  contain  impre- 
cations against  Germany  which  might  have  been  written 
yesterday.  Yet  the  poet  never  wholly  accepts  the  doc- 
trines of  Kirieidvski  and  Akssakov. 

Nor  did  it  ever  occur  to  him  to  calculate  the  greatness 
of  his  country  on  the  number  of  swords  she  could  draw, 
nor  to  become  ''the  patriot  of  brutality,"  as  Brandes 
powerfully  describes  Pouchkine.  But  he  was  proud  of 
his  race  to  the  highest  degree,  and  this  in  spite  of  the 


LERMONTOV  229 

fact  that  a  pretentiousness — also  the  result  of  Byron's 
influence — induced  him  to  claim  descent  now  from  the 
Spanish  family  of  Lerma,  and  again  from  the  Scottish 
Learmonths,  who  owned  an  ancient  tower  on  the  Tweed, 
near  Sir  Walter  Scott's  house  of  Abbotsford.  But  though 
he  was  fond  of  talking  about  ''leaving  the  country  of 
snows  and  police-agents  "  and  going  back  to  ''my  Scot- 
land/' he  had  all  the  distinctive  features  of  the  Russian — 
his  uneasy  sensitiveness,  his  lofty  imagination,  his  infinite 
sadness.  Tourgueniev  remarked  upon  his  eyes,  ''  which 
never  laughed,  even  when  he  laughed  himself ! " 

The  parents  of  Michael  Iouri£vitch  Lermontov 
(1811-1841)  possessed  no  castle,  either  on  Tweed  banks 
or  elsewhere.  They  w^ere  small  nobles  in  the  govern- 
ment of  Toula,  and  were  really,  if  we  may  trust  the  poet's 
biographers,  of  Scottish  origin.  One  of  their  ancestors, 
George  Learmonth,  is  said  to  have  left  his  country  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  taken  service  with  the  Tsar 
Michael  Fiodorovitch.  Michael  lourievitch  received  a 
careful  education,  as  those  times  went.  He  had  a  German 
nurse,  and  even  a  French  tutor,  who  taught  him  to  worship 
Napoleon,  and  inspired  him  with  a  taste  for  French 
poetry,  but  who  did  not  prevent  him,  in  later  years,  from 
envying  Pouchkine  his  Arina  Rodionovna,  and  the  old 
nurse's  folk-tales,  "  which  had  more  poetry  in  them  than 
the  whole  of  French  literature."  Dismissed  from  the 
University  for  some  trifling  escapade,  he  spent  two 
years  in  the  military  school,  and  lived  the  life  of  the 
ordinary  officer  of  the  day,  save  that  he  put  *'a  Httle 
poetry  into  his  champagne."  His  earliest  efforts.  The 
Fete  at  P e terkof  -Sind  Oulancka  (the  handbooks  of  Russian 
literature  describe  them  as  "epic"  ;  I  should  rather  have 
called  them  indelicate),  belong  to  this  period  (1832-1834) 


2  30  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE        , 

and  bear  its  seal.  He  was  a  cornet  in  the  Htissars  of 
the  Guard  when  a  St.  Petersburg  review  published  his 
first  Oriental  sketch,  Hadji- Abrek^  which  is  essentially 
Byronian  in  form.  J^ 

In  Russia  the  study  of  English  literature  afld  poetry 
was  always  somewhat  inadequate  and  fragmentary.  The 
subject  was  not  considered  in  its  completeness,  nor  was 
any  individual  work  studied  in  its  entirety.  Before  the 
advent  of  Byron,  Walter  Scott  was  for  many ^  years  the 
only  English  author  at  all  generally  knowrt:  At  the 
time  of  Lermontov's  greatest  devotion  to  Byron,  he  was 
unacquainted  with  Shelley,  and  even  of  Byron  himself ; 
neither  his  imagination  nor  his  inspiration  imbibed  more 
than  some  special  features.  No  Russian  Anglorhaniac  of 
that  period  ever  dreamt  of  sacrificing  himself,fiike  Byron, 
like  Shelley,  for  Greece  or  for  Ireland,  or  like^^Landor,  for 
Spain.  And  if  there  was  no  sign  in  the  pages  of  Eugene 
Onie'guine  of  that  mighty  panorama  of  satire  in  which 
the  author  of  Don  Juan  and  Childe  Harold  pilloried  the 
European  world,  with  all  the  hypocrisies  of  its  morals 
and  social  organisation,  neither  do  Lermontov's  Oriental 
sketches,  nor  even  the  more  matured  worksj  of  his  later 
days,  such  as  The  Demon  and  The  Hero  of  our  Own  TimeSy 
reflect  more  than  some  explosive  flashes  o^the  Byronic 
sun — pride,  free  thought,  sardonic  laughter,  and  an 
artificial  cynicism  and  demonism.  The  ^'humanitarian 
ray  is  lacking.  y 

The  Russian  and  the  Englishman  cXuld  not  fully 
agree,  even  in  their  common  worship  -of  Napoleon. 
While  Byron  reproached  the  "  god  o^  battles  "  for 
his  falsehood  to  the  revolutionary  idea,  and  really  only 
succeeded  in  adoring  his  idol  after  its  fall,  when  he  was 
inspired  with  scorn  and  rage  against  the  ''jackals  preying 


LERMONTOV  231 

on  the  dying  lion,"  it  never  occurred  to  Lermontov  to 
discuss  his  deity,  and  after  the  catastrophe  he  lays  the 
blame,  naively  and  flatly,  on  the  French  nation,  which 
he  holds  guilty  of  having  betrayed  and  forsaken  its 
glorious  hero,  or  rather — and  how  Russian  is  the  touch  ! 
— its  sovereign  !  The  pessimism  of  the  author  of  The 
Demon  sprang  partly  from  another,  and,  we  must  con- 
fess, a  less  noble  source.  The  cornet  of  hussars  pos- 
sessed none  of  the  elegance  and  charm  of  his  English 
model.  Ill-made,  awkward  in  society,  where,  by  his 
own  confession,  he  "could  not  utter  a  word,"  his  in- 
feriority, bitterly  felt,  made  him  sulky,  cross-grained, 
and  vindictive.  Men,  as  a  rule,  detested  him.  He  made 
love  to  the  fair  sex,  but  more  especially,  it  would  seem, 
for  the  sake  of  the  spiteful  pleasure  of  forsaking  the 
woman  whose  favour  he  had  won.  Though  quite  as 
self-conscious  and  self-centred  as  Byron,  quite  capable 
of  saying,  "The  person  whose  company  gives  me  most 
pleasure  is  myself  ...  I  am  my  own  best  friend" — 
quite  as  ambitious,  "desiring  to  leave  traces  of  his  passage 
everywhere" — Lermontov  was  utterly  incapable  of  say- 
ing, like  Byron,  "  I  love,  thee,  man,  not  less,  but  Nature 
more  !  "  or  that  to  desire  "  to  fly  from,  need  not  mean 
to  hate  mankind."  On  the  contrary,  he  deliberately  gave 
himself  out  to  be  a  man-hater.  The  bits  of  blue  sky  over- 
head, to  which  the  English  poet  loved  to  raise  his  eyes, 
had  no  existence  for  his  Russian  confrere.  His  horizon 
was  always  gloomy,  laden  with  clouds,  heavy  with 
thunder. 

We  have  been  told  that  this  deformed  and  half-starved 
Byronism,  by  giving  Lermontov,  from  the  purely  aesthetic 
standpoint,  a  taste  for  the  brilliant  imagery,  the  sonorous 

language,  and  the  humour  and  pathos  of  the  English 
16 


232  RUSSIAN  LITIRATURE 

poet,  did  him  the  service  of  snatching  him  from  the 
habits  and  surroundings  of  a  mere  cavalry  officer,  and 
reveaHng  to  him  a  higher  world  of  feeling  and  thought. 
I  should  be  much  more  disposed  to  blame  it  as  having 
tempted  the  Russian  poet  away  from  other  springs 
of  inspiration,  more  suited  to  his  powers  and  natural 
temperament.  He  drew  nearer  to  these,  for  a  moment, 
at  the  time  of  Pouchkine's  death.  He  had  *^  Byronised  " 
up  till  that  time  without  much  success,  and  led,  mean- 
while, a  foolish  roistering  life,  some  incidents  of  which 
he  has  chosen  to  relate  in  Mongo,  and  in  The  Princess 
Ligovskaia.  The  tragic  end  of  his  rival,  done  to  death 
by  a  drawing-room  conspiracy,  roused  him  into  a  trans- 
port of  rage  and  judicial  indignation — ^'The  poet  is 
dead,  the  victim  of  honour  ! "  The  verses,  which,  like 
Pouchkine's  epigrams,  were  circulated  in  manuscript, 
earned  Lermontov  a  year  of  exile  to  the  Caucasus. 
Here  The  Demons  the  plan  of  which  had  been  conceived 
and  sketched  out  some  years  before,  was  recast.  The 
subject  is  evidently  suggested,  indirectly,  by  Byron's 
Heaven  and  Earthy  and  more  directly  by  De  Vigny's 
Eloa ;  but  in  the  hands  of  the  Russian  poet  the  char- 
acters and  the  setting  of  the  story  have  both  under- 
gone a  complete  transformation.  For  the  fanciful  and, 
to  some  extent,  abstract  landscape  of  the  French  writer, 
he  has  substituted  the  real  magnificence  of  Nature  in  the 
Caucasus,  which  had  already  cast  its  spell  over  Pouch- 
kine.  But  the  scenes  which  by  the  latter  were  coldly, 
and  we  may  almost  say  topographically,  described,  rise 
lifelike  before  us  under  the  pen  which,  in  Lermontov's 
hand,  seems  to  tremble  under  the  breath  of  love.  And 
the  heroine  of  his  poem  is  no  longer  the  symbolic  virgin, 
born  of  a   tear  dropped   by  the  Christ,   who  held  De 


LERMONTOV  233 

Vigny's  enamoured  fancy,  but  a  living  passionate  being 
— a  Jewess  of  the  Babylonian  Captivity  in  the  first 
sketch  of  the  work — then  a  Spanish  nun,  and  finally  a 
Georgian  princess.  She  has  less  ideal  nobility  about 
her  than  De  Vigny's  heroine,  but  she  has  more  human 
reality.  She  does  not  yield  to  the  compassionate  long- 
ing to  save  her  seducer  by  her  love.  She  obeys  the 
imperious  behest  of  love  itself,  the  cry  of  her  own  heart 
and  senses.  And  she  is  only  the  secondary  figure  in 
the  poem.  The  leading  part  is  that  of  the  Demon 
himself. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  judge  of  the  poet's  concep- 
tion on  this  point.  All  we  have,  indeed,  is  the  mutilated 
form  to  which  it  has  been  reduced  by  his  own  precau- 
tion and  reticence,  with  a  view  to  the  Censor,  and  by 
the  subsequent  pruning  executed  by  that  functionary. 
The  hero,  as  he  thus  appears  to  us,  has  nothing  in 
common  with  Byron's  ''  Lucifer  "  and  Milton's  ^^  Satan," 
both  of  them  personifications  of  the  Demon-thought 
which  raises  man  while  it  torments  him.  The  seducer 
of  Tamara,  the  fair  Circassian,  though  he  calls  himself 
''king  of  knowledge  and  of  liberty,"  does  nothing  to 
justify  his  title,  in  no  way  proves  his  superiority  in  the 
sphere  of  intellect,  and  gives  no  sign  anywhere  of  that 
spirit  of  revolutionary  protest,  that  longing  for  power 
and  activity,  which  have  set  Byron's  ''Lucifer"  at  the 
head  of  all  the  agitators  and  national  leaders  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  just  as  Milton's  "Satan"  incarnates  the 
intellectual  struggle  of  the  seventeenth,  and  Carducci's 
Inno  a  Satana  represents  Wi^forza  vindice  delta  razione  of 
our  own  day.  This  sensual  demon  approaches  much 
more  nearly  to  the  type  created  by  De  Vigny.  "/'^/ 
fonde   man   empire   de  Jiamme — dans   les   desirs   du   coeur 


2  34  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

— dans  les  reves  de  rdme — dans  les  desirs  du  corps — 
attraits  mysterteux."  But  in  Lermontov's  Demon  this 
last  feature  is  worked  up  into  an  over-mastering  eroti- 
cism, which  appears  to  have  been  the  dominant  note  in 
the  poet's  own  temperament. 

I  must  repeat  that  The  Demon  is  a  poem  which  should 
not  be  judged  unreservedly  on  its  mere  outward  appear- 
ance. Lermontov's  general  attitude  was  one  of  protest 
couched  in  the  form  of  literature,  and  under  other  con- 
ditions he  would  certainly  have  been  capable  of  giving  a 
much  less  commonplace  expression  to  his  thoughts. 

To  St.  Petersburg,  whither,  thanks  to  powerful  in- 
tervention, he  returned  in  1838,  he  brought  back,  to- 
gether with  his  Demon,  his  Song  on  Ivan  Vassilievitch^ 
which  belongs  to  quite  a  different  order  of  inspiration, 
and  seems  to  emanate  from  some  far-away  region,  some 
mysterious  and  inexplorable  corner  of  his  gloomy  and 
storm-tossed  soul.  In  it,  the  figure  of  Ivan  the  Terrible, 
with  the  features  bestowed  on  him  by  popular  legend 
and  verse,  and  the  world  of  ideas  and  feelings  with 
which  both  have  surrounded  it,  stand  out  in  extraor- 
dinary relief.  At  a  tournament  over  which  the  Tsar 
presides,  a  young  Moscow  merchant,  Kalachnikov,  chal- 
lenges Kiribi^ievitch,  one  of  the  sovereign's  boon  com- 
panions, who  had  violated  his  wife,  to  single  combat 
with  their  fists.  Struck  on  the  chest,  according  to  the  cour- 
teous rules  of  the  combat,  Kalachnikov  responds  with  a 
fearful  blow  on  the  temple,  which  lays  his  adversary  stone 
dead  at  his  feet.  ''  Didst  thou  do  the  deed  intentionally  ?" 
queries  the  Tsar.  ''Yes,  orthodox  Tsar,"  replies  the 
merchant ;  ''  I  killed  him  with  my  full  will.  But  where- 
fore—that I  will  not  tell  thee.  I  will  tell  that  to  God 
alone."     ''Thou   dost   well,"   answers   Ivan,    "my   little 


.LERMONTOV  235 

friend,  bold  wrestler,  merchant's  son,  to  have  answered 
me  according  to  thy  conscience.  Thy  young  wife  and 
thy  orphans  shall  receive  largesse  from  my  treasury. 
To  thy  brothers  I  give  permission  from  this  day  to  traffic 
over  all  the  Russian  empire,  this  huge  empire,  with- 
out paying  tax  or  toll.  As  for  thee,  my  little  friend,  go 
to  the  scaffold — take  thither  thy  rebellious  head.  I  will 
cause  the  axe  to  be  ground  and  sharpened — I  w^ill  have 
the  headsman  dressed  and  adorned — I  will  order  the 
great  bell  to  be  tolled,  so  that  all  the  folk  of  Moscow 
may  be  sure  to  know  that  thou,  too,  hast  shared  my 
mercy." 

And  so  it  comes  to  pass.  Kalachnikov,  having  bidden 
farewell  to  wife  and  children,  goes  to  the  place  of  execu- 
tion, there  to  die,  cruelly  and  ignominiously.  The  poem 
does  not  say  '^unjustly." 

The  story,  the  dialogue,  the  setting,  are  all  admirable, 
perfectly  natural,  exquisitely  simple,  powerfully  original. 
St.  Petersburg,  unfortunately,  was  to  tempt  Lermontov 
back  to  his  earlier  and  more  artificial  style,  and  at  the 
same  time  to  a  disorderly  and  empty  mode  of  life  which 
soon  weighed  on  him  even  more  heavily  than  on  Pouch- 
kine  himself.  He  was  in  despair,  grew  furious,  declared 
he  would  rather  go  anywhere,  '^to  his  regiment  or  to 
the  devil,"  was  haunted,  like  Pouchkine,  by  a  presenti- 
ment of,  even  a  desire  for,  a  speedy  death,  and  composed 
that  series  of  prose  narratives  which,  collected  together 
under  the  title  A  Hero  of  our  Own  Time,  have  been  taken 
for  his  autobiography.  I  think  it  would  be  both  cruel 
and  unjust  to  accept  this  supposition  absolutely.  Just  as 
Pouchkine  has  put  some  of  himself  into  both  Onieguine 
and  Lenski,  without  exhausting  his  whole  personality 
in  either  character — so  Pietchorine,  the  ''  Hero  "  in  ques- 


2i6  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

tion^  is  certainly  not  wholly  representative  of  Lermontov. 
The  author  of  A  Hero  did  certainly  intend,  like  Musset 
in  his  Confessions  d'un  Enfant  du  Siecle  (a  book  which 
doubtless  influenced  him),  to  lay  bare  the  soul,  generi- 
cally  speaking,  of  the  man  of  his  own  epoch,  and  in  it  a 
portion  of  his  own.  In  this  respect  his  work  is  interest- 
ing as  being  an  attempt  at  the  psychological  novel.  But 
Lermontov  possessed  neither  the  sincerity,  the  subtlety, 
nor  even  the  broad-mindedness  of  De  Musset.  His  Piet^ 
cJiorine  does  certainly  bear  traces  of  the  moral  uneasi- 
ness which  tortured  the  best  minds  of  that  period.  That 
it  is  which  makes  him,  like  Onieguine  and  like  Tchatski, 
appear  an  exile  from  his  country  and  from  his  own  self, 
unable  to  find  shelter  or  repose  anywhere  on  earth.  But 
he  lacks  both  the  judgment  which  would  enable  him  to 
recognise  the  causes  of  his  mental  disturbance,  and  the 
determination  to  suppress  such  of  them,  external  or  in- 
ternal, as  depend  on  his  own  free-will.  At  bottom  he  is 
a  military  dandy,  almost  an  English  lord  suffering  from 
the  spleen,  aristocratic  and  sentimental,  and  at  the  same 
time  a  barbarian,  capable  of  all  the  coarse  and  violent 
passions  of  the  Tcherkess  tribes,  among  whom  he 
took  refuge ;  a  ^'  Romantic "  with  a  delicate  feeling  for 
Nature,  a  passionate  love  of  liberty,  and  his  mouth  full 
of  quotations  from  Schiller  and  Walter  Scott  ;  a  Don 
Juan  filled  with  a  vague  longing  for  some  ideal  mistress, 
and  avenging  on  every  woman  he  meets,  be  she  Russian 
princess  or  Tcherkess  peasant,  the  disappointment  he 
finds  in  her ;  a  lover  who  knows  neither  faith  nor 
honour,  a  detestable  comrade.  His  temperament,  his 
disposition,  and  even  his  external  appearance  are  abso- 
lutely in  accord  with  the  unpleasing  memories  which  St. 
Petersburg  belles,  and  his  own  brother  officers,  retain  of 


LERMONTOV  237 

Lermontov.  Read  the  portrait  of  his  adventurous  guest 
traced  by  one  of  the  heroes  of  the  book,  Maximus  Maxi- 
movitch,  after  having  given  him  shelter  on  the  steppe, 
and  compare  it  with  Bodenstedt's  hasty  sketch  of  Ler- 
montov, after  a  chance  meeting.  *'  Strongly  built,  but 
exceedingly  slight ;  disorderly  dress,  but  dazzlingly  white 
linen."  The  resemblance  even  extends  to  material  details. 
Such  is  the  visible  and  apparent  aspect  of  this  per- 
sonage, and  I  am  willing  to  admit  that  it  seems  to 
conceal  something.  But  what  that  may  be,  remains  an 
unfathomable  and  deceptive  riddle.  Pietchorine  may 
possibly  be  a  Manfred.  When,  after  reading  Moore's 
Life  of  Byron,  Lermontov  exclaimed — 

IVe  have  the  same  soul,  the  sa?ne  torments ; 
Would  that  I  might  have  the  same  fate  I 

he  expressed — of  this  I  am  convinced — a  genuine  feeling. 
But  his  Manfred  was  always  to  stay  on  his  mountain. 
Never  does  his  hero's  disdainful  pride  seem  touched  with 
an  aching  compassion  for  those  below.  Once  we  see  him 
weep  over  the  corpse  of  a  horse,  and  this  is  all.  And 
his  adventures,  his  seductions,  his  abductions,  his  duels, 
are  all  pitifully  commonplace. 

They  interest  us  ?  Yes,  just  as  certain  not  particu- 
larly pretty  women  interest  us — doubtless  on  account  of 
the  exquisite  naturalness  of  the  story  and  the  Caucasian 
colouring,  which  is  entirely  beautiful.  There  is  not  a 
trace  of  composition  about  the  work.  It  has  neither 
beginning,  nor  middle,  nor  end.  This  peculiarity  will 
presently  be  noticed  as  belonging  generally  to  the  novels 
of  Gogol  and  his  emulators. 

Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  Lermontov  was  only 
five-and-twenty  when  he  wrote  this  book,  that  he  was 


2  38  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

living  the  life  of  a  hussar,  and  that  to  all  appearance  he 
had  not  spoken  his  last  word,  nor  even  found  his  true 
path  in  literature.  Alas  !  the  moments  left  him  to  search 
for  it  were  numbered.  In  1840  he  fought  a  duel  with 
the  son  of  Baron  de  Barante,  the  well-known  historian, 
then  Minister  of  France  at  St.  Petersburg,  and  for  this 
prank  was  sent  back  to  the  Caucasus.  Sullenly  he  bade 
farewell  to  ^'unwashed  Russia,  to  the  country  of  slaves, 
to  blue  uniforms,  and  the  people  who  submitted  to  their 
law."  ^^  Perhaps,"  he  added,  ^'  beyond  the  chain  of  the 
free  mountains  I  shall  escape,  O  my  country !  from  thy 
pachas,  from  their  eyes  that  see  everything,  and  their 
ears  that  claim  to  hear  everything  ! "  The  next  year 
he  reappeared  for  a  short  time  at  St.  Petersburg,  and 
was  killed  in  another  duel  with  Martynov,  his  own 
brother  officer,  of  whom  he  was  supposed  to  have  drawn 
a  somewhat  spiteful  portrait  in  his  Hero^  under  the  title 
of  Grouchnitski. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  the  work  of  Lermontov  is  that  of  a 
literary  apprentice  who  drinks  at  every  spring,  and  attempts 
every  style.  In  his  tragedy  called  Ispantsy  (the  Spaniards), 
written  in  1830,  we  find  reminiscences  of  Nathan  der 
Weise  and  Kaball  und  Liebe,  In  The  Masquerade j  a  play 
written  in  1835,  he  appears  to  have  laid  Shakespeare 
under  contribution.  On  another  play  he  has  seen  fit 
to  bestow  a  German  title,  Menschen  und  Leidenschaften, 
But  in  all  his  work,  and  especially  in  the  short  sets  of 
verses,  most  of  which  were  not  published  till  after  his 
death,  there  is  strong  evidence  of  personal  inspiration  : 
the  cry  of  distress,  the  despairing  complaint  of  a  soul 
that  pines  for  a  better  world,  and  thanks  God  for 
everything,  "for  scalding  tears,  for  poisonous  kisses,"  so 
long  as  it  may  soon  '^  cease  to  be  thankful  altogether." 


LERMONTOV  239 

This  is  not  Pouchkine's  sceptical  and  often  ironic 
melancholy ;  it  is  an  anguish  that  is  bitter  to  mad- 
ness, a  rebellion  violent  to  fury,  occasionally  combined, 
as  in  the  figures  of  Pietchorine  and  of  the  modern 
Othello  in  The  Masquerade^  with  a  power  of  analysis 
which,  though  still  somewhat  limited,  has  a  subtlety 
and  penetration  that  remind  us  of  Stendhal.  As 
regards  workmanship,  the  distinctive  peculiarity  of  his 
writing  is  its  stereotyped  quality.  Subject,  expression, 
phrase,  general  form,  are  constantly  reproduced,  in  every 
one  of  his  works.  Thus  the  comparison  of  a  human 
heart  to  a  ruined  temple  which  the  gods  have  forsaken 
and  where  men  dare  not  dwell  (which  had  already  been 
used  by  Pouchkine,  who  may  have  borrow^ed  it  from 
Mickiev^'icz),  is  reproduced  by  Lermontov  in  The  Confes- 
sion (1830),  in  The  Boyard  Orcha  (1835),  and  in  The  Demon 
(1838).  His  language,  though  less  unvaryingly  correct 
and  apt  than  Pouchkine's,  frequently  rises  to  a  pitch 
of  sonorous  music  even  more  wonderful  than  his.  He 
bore  a  seven-stringed  lyre,  not  a  chord  of  which  rang 
false.  Of  w^hat  splendid  hopes  was  Russia  bereft  when 
a  senseless  bullet  crashed  into  the  instrument  ! 

Meanwhile,  from  popular  depths  unknown  to  Piet- 
chorine, and  even  to  Lermontov  himself,  other  chords, 
modulated  in  the  same  tones  of  complaint  and  mortal 
sadness,  though  gentler  indeed,  and  more  resigned,  began 
to  rise. 

In  1809  there  was  born  to  a  small  cattle-dealer 
(prassol)  at  Voroneje,  a  child  who  seemed  destined  by 
fate  to  assist  his  parents  in  their  humble  and  rustic 
vocations.  For  four  years  he  attended  a  local  school ; 
then  he  departed  on  to  the  steppe,  to  mount  guard 
over  flocks  of  sheep  and  herds  of  oxen.     But  with  him 


240  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

he  carried  a  collection  of  popular  verse,  which  was 
to  while  away  his  long  hours  of  solitude  ;  and  in  his 
breast,  too,  he  bore,  as  it  proved,  a  poet's  soul. 

This  youth  was  Alexis  Vassili£vitch  Koltsov 
(1809-1842).  The  good-nature  of  a  bookseller  placed 
other  volumes  within  his  reach,  quite  a  little  library, 
including  the  works  of  Dmitriev,  of  Joukovski,  of 
Pouchkine,  of  Delwig.  The  first  effect  they  had  on 
him  was  not  to  make  him  write  verses,  but  to  make 
him  fall  in  love.  The  heroine  of  this  firci;  idyl  was 
a  young  serf  called  Douniacha.  The  hero's  parents 
considered  such  a  marriage  a  mesalliance.  They  sent 
the  heir  of  their  flocks  and  herds  to  a  distance  ;  they 
sold  Douniacha  for  a  sum  of  money  and  a  bonus  in  salt 
meat,  and  she  utterly  disappeared.  Two  years  later, 
after  cruel  treatment  at  the  hands  of  her  new  proprietor, 
who  lived  on  the  banks  of  the  Don,  she  died.  Koltsov 
never  saw  her  again. 

In  the  midst  of  his  sorrow  new  friends  appeared  on 
the  scene,  holding  out  helping  hands  to  him.  First  we 
see  Andrew  Porfirevitch  Serebrianski,  a  young  poet, 
whose  melancholy  song,  ^'  Swift  as  the  waves  flow  the 
days  of  our  life,"  had  its  hour  of  popularity.  Then  came 
Stankievitch,  whom  we  know  already,  and  whose  father 
was  a  land-owner  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Voroneje. 
Once  more  he  played  the  part  of  Maecenas.  By  his 
kindness  the  young  herdsman  was  suddenly  brought 
into  contact  with  the  literary  world  at  Moscow,  and  in 
1835  ^  selection  of  his  poetry  appeared,  published  at  the 
expense  of  his  generous  protector.  It  was  a  revelation  ! 
The  link  which  had  hitherto  existed  between  popular 
and  artistic  poetry  had  been  purely  artificial.  Koltsov 
made  that  link  a  living  bond.     Under  his  pen  the  rustic 


KOLTSOV  241 

songs — fresh,  simple,  whether  with  their  brilHant  colours 
and  bird-like  warbling,  or  with  their  gloomy  shadows  and 
melancholy  voices — retained  all  their  originality,  and 
gained  an  exquisite  form.  This  was  art,  and  at  the  same 
time  it  was  Nature  to  the  very  life.  It  was  like  breathing 
the  air  of  the  meadows  and  drinking  straight  from  the 
rivulet.  These  verses  should  not  be  declaimed.  They 
must  be  sung  to  the  music  of  some  balalaika. 

Koltsov  did  not,  as  may  well  be  imagined,  at  once 
attain  a  perfect  mastery  of  this  new  art — this  marvellous 
fusion  of  diverse  elements.  In  his  earlier  attempts,  he 
did  not  fail  to  drop  from  time  to  time  into  an  imitation 
of  the  Romantic  style,  and  so  did  scurvy  service  to  his 
own  talent ;  and  how  scant  was  the  space  of  time  allotted 
him  wherein  to  establish  and  develop  his  gift  ! 

In  1835  the  young  poet  was  able  to  make  some  stay 
in  St.  Petersburg  and  Moscow,  and  frequent  the  literary 
circles  gathered  there  ;  but  until  1840,  although  he  kept 
up  his  intercourse  with  Bielinski  and  his  circle,  he  was 
obliged  to  devote  the  greater  part  of  his  time  to  the 
business  by  which  he  supported  himself  and  his  family. 
Two  years  later  Koltsov  was  dead — worn  out,  killed,  at 
three-and-thirty,  by  hard  work  and  sorrow. 

He  has  been  called  the  Russian  Burns.  The  resem- 
blance, to  my  thinking,  is  confined  to  some  features  of 
his  personal  history.  Like  the  Ayrshire  poet,  Koltsov 
was  born  of  the  people,  and  knew  what  it  was  to  be  poor. 
His  poetic  vocation  sprang  from  the  same  source — a 
thwarted  love.  He  was  more  unhappy  than  Burns,  for 
he  never  married  his  Jean  Armour.  He  was  less  hot- 
blooded,  and  never  stooped  to  debauchery  ;  his  life  and 
his  poetry  were  both  chaste.  But  the  work  of  Burns  is 
not  a  mere  artistic  transmutation  of  popular  subjects. 


242  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

The  Scottish  poet  is  a  great  poet  in  the  full  sense  of  the 
term — a  leader  in  the  twofold  domain  of  art  and  thought. 
Properly  speaking,  his  work  was  not  popular  poetry  :  he 
was  ashamed  of  his  origin  !  He  produced  a  new  poetry, 
wherein  feeling,  thought,  and  soul  prevailed  over  form. 
By  this,  as  well  as  by  the  accent  of  rebellion  and  bitter- 
ness which  pervades  his  verse,  he  prepared  the  way  for 
a  revolution  ;  he  outstripped  his  century  by  forty  years  ; 
he  ushered  in  the  advent  of  Byron.  The  peaceful  bard 
of  Voroneje  has  nothing  in  common  with  these  things. 

Koltsov  sings  of  poverty,  of  the  fight  for  existence,  of 
the  cruelty  of  unkind  Fate.  But  all  this  in  tones  of 
perfect  resignation,  and  within  a  very  narrow  imaginative 
sphere.  When  he  leaves  this  and  indulges  in  his  Medita- 
tions {Doumy)^  he  loses  himself  in  the  most  cloudy  and 
childish  mysticism. 

The  philosophic  and  social  import  of  this  poetry  lies 
in  the  very  fact  of  its  existence.  Von  Visine's  heroine, 
Mme.  Prostakova,  could  not  conceive,  but  a  short  time 
previously,  that  the  peasants  should  dare  to  be  ill.  Yet 
here  we  see  them  actually  falling  in  love,  and,  interesting 
people  in  their  love  affairs ;  they  venture  to  be  poetic, 
and  even  touching.  And  these  are  not  the  be-ribboned 
shepherds  of  Florian,  but  Russian  moujiksy  redolent  of 
brandy  and  tar,  rugged,  often  savage,  always  sad.  Koltsov, 
by  virtue  of  the  gift  which  enabled  him  to  raise,  to  en- 
noble, to  idealise  these  boorish  elements,  has  his  share  in 
the  twofold  current  of  emancipation  of  that  period.  His 
method  may  be  summed  up  as  follows  :  The  popular 
song  invariably  deals  with  the  external  aspect  of  things 
alone.  It  has  no  conception  of  their  internal  meaning. 
It  makes  a  clumsy  use  of  metaphors  which  it  cannot 
coherently  develop.     It  gives  rugged  expression  to  rugged 


KOLTSOV  #  243 

feelings.  All  this  is  transfigured  in  Koltsov's  hands.  He 
lights  up  the  facts  by  revealing  the  psychological  element 
they  contain :  he  purifies  the  metaphors,  he  idealises  the 
sentiments.  We  see  a  poor  "  mower/'  for  instance^  who 
loves  Grouniouchka  and  is  loved  in  return.  His  request 
for  her  hand  is  refused.  The  daughters  of  rich  peasants 
are  not  for  penniless  fellows  such  as  he.  He  empties 
his  scanty  purse  to  buy  a  well-sharpened  scythe.  Is  he 
going  to  kill  himself  ?  Oh,  no  indeed  !  He  will  go  out 
into  the  steppe,  where  the  harvest  is  richest.  He  will 
toil  bravely,  even  cheerfully.  He  will  come  back  with 
his  pockets  full.  He  will  rattle  his  silver  roubles,  and  we 
shall  see  whether  Grouniouchka's  father  will  not  give  in 
at  last !  What  have  we  here  ?  A  love  story  such  as 
may  be  found  in  any  country  place.  Clothed  in  Koltsov's 
language  it  is  a  splendid  poem. 

This  language  always  adheres  as  closely  as  may  be, 
without  actual  coarseness,  to  the  popular  speech.  It  is 
full  of  wonderful  treasures  in  the  way  of  words  and 
striking  imagery,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  Season  of  Love 
{Poralioubvi),  where  a  young  girl's  white  bosom  is  seen 
heaving  tempestuously,  though  she  will  not  betray  her 
secret.  *'  She  will  not  cast  up  her  foundation  of  sand," 
says  the  poet. 

I  have  before  me,  as  I  write,  a  still  unpublished  cor- 
respondence between  Tourgueniev  and  Ralston.  This 
privilege  I  owe  to  the  kindness  of  M.  Onieguine,  the 
owner  of  this  inestimable  treasure.  In  its  pages  the 
great  novelist  congratulates  the  English  critic  on  having 
introduced  the  public  of  his  native  land  to  a  work  which 
very  probably  has  no  parallel  in  any  literature.  "  As 
long  as  the  Russian  tongue  exists,"  Tourgueniev  writes, 
"  certain  of  Koltsov's  songs  will  retain  their  popularity  in 


244  ♦RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

his  own  country."  He  doubtless  had  in  his  mind  the 
poems  entitled  The  Harvest^  The  Labourer's  Song,  The 
Winds  BloWy  and  The  Forest.  Other  Russian  critics  have, 
in  my  opinion,  ascribed  too  much  importance  to  certain 
more  ambitious  compositions,  such  as  The  Little  Farm 
and  Night — incidents  of  women  surprised  by  jealous 
husbands  or  lovers,  scenes  of  savage  anger  and  murder, 
in  which  the  author's  dramatic  power  strikes  me  less 
than  the  poverty  and  childishness  of  his  execution. 
Koltsov  was  quite  ignorant  of  his  craft.  He  knew  no 
more  of  the  art  of  composition  than  of  that  of  prosody. 
He  depended  entirely  on  his  ear  and  his  intuition,  and 
this  could  only  serve  him  in  simple  subjects.  Intellec- 
tually the  poor  prassol  poet  was  always  half-absorbed 
into  that  '^  empire  of  darkness "  from  which  Ostrovski 
was  to  draw  his  most  powerful  effects  of  gloomy  terror 
and  pity. 

Not  long  after  the  death  of  the  young  poet,  another 
made  his  appearance  in  Voroneje.  Ivan  Savitch  Nikitine 
(1826-1861)  also  sprang  from  a  commercial  family,  but 
from  one  having  some  connection  with  the  Church. 
He  attracted  notice  in  1853  by  a  patriotic  poem,  Russia, 
inspired  by  the  opening  events  of  the  Crimean  War.  A 
collection  of  his  lyric  poems,  published  in  1856  by  Count 
D.  N.  Tolstoi,  was  somewhat  coldly  received.  But  two 
years  later  the  fame  of  Nikitine  was  established  by  a 
great  poem,  Koulaky  which  bore  testimony  to  his  deep 
knowledge  of  the  life  of  the  people  and  his  remarkable 
powers  of  expression.  The  word  Koulak  means  "peasants' 
money-lender."  The  poet's  friends  helped  him  to  open  a 
bookshop  in  his  native  town.  His  business  prospered, 
and  enabled  him  to  work  and  create  more  freely.  He 
perfected  his  style,  for,  unlike  Koltsov,  Nikitine  was  a 


OGARIOV  245 

scholar.  He  turned  his  attention  to  the  ro7nan  de  mceurs^ 
had  prepared  and  half-completed  two  works,  The  Mayor 
and  A  Seminarisfs  Journal^  when  consumption  seized 
him,  and  he  died,  like  Pouchkine,  at  the  age  of  thirty- 
eight. 

Lermontov  and  Koltsov  were  not  destined  to  have  any 
direct  successors ;  and  in  making  this  assertion  I  do 
not  think  I  shall  offend  the  shade  of  Countess  Eudoxia 
Rostoptchine  (1811-1858),  nor  even  that  of  Nicholas 
Platonovitch  Ogariov  (1813-1877).  This  writer,  the  friend 
of  Herzen  and  collaborator  in  The  Bell,  published,  in 
London,  some  poetry  which  has  been  highly  appreciated 
by  the  Russians,  who  delight  in  forbidden  works,  and 
which,  in  the  eyes  of  some  hot-headed  critics,  places  him 
on  a  higher  level  than  Nekrassov.  In  my  judgment  it 
betokens  more  fierce  enthusiasm  than  poetic  feeling,  and 
the  author's  best  works,  his  Humour,  his  Nocturne,  his 
Soliloquy^  his  Winter's  Day,  present  a  strange  medley 
of  Byronian  pessimism  and  of  an  equally  ill-founded 
optimism. 

As  for  Countess  Rostoptchine,  her  poems,  which 
hardly  anybody  reads  nowadays,  and  her  novels,  which 
never  found  many  readers,  are  full  of  elevated  sentiments 
and  intellectual  breadth. 

The  transition  from  poetry  to  prose,  from  the  romantic 
struggle  against  reality  to  the  deliberate  observation  of 
that  reality  which  was  unconquerable,  is  a  feature  common 
to  the  literary  evolution  of  this  period  in  every  European 
country.  In  Russia,  where  the  reality  is  tougher  and 
more  repulsive  than  elsewhere,  this  evolution  was  accom- 
plished with  special  rapidity ;  and  to  this  result  the 
essentially  realistic  temperament  of  the  nation  was  pecu- 
liarly favourable.    The  spirit  of  nature  which  had  been 


246  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

driven  out  by  the  pseudo-classic  invasion  swiftly  came 
home  again.  Between  1830  and  1840  the  novel,  as  exem- 
plified in  the  works  of  Zagoskine,  Lajetchnikov,  Dahl, 
Weltman,  N.  A.  Polevoi",  Prince  V.  Odoievski,  Pavlov, 
Bestoujev,  and  Pogodine,  drew  more  and  more  to  the 
front  in  literature.  Some  of  these  writers  were  still  un- 
conscious Romanticists,  imitators  of  Sir  Walter  Scott ; 
but  in  every  one  of  them  we  notice  a  common  tendency 
to  the  representation  of  scenes  from  the  national  life, 
whether  historic  or  contemporary,  together  with  a 
constant  seeking  after  comic  effect,  of  a  satiric  and 
somewhat  humorous  nature  ;  and  before  Thackeray  and 
Dickens  had  reached  the  Russian  world,  Gogol  had 
risen  up  within  its  borders. 

Gogol. 

We  have  arrived  at  the  year  1831,  and  the  literary  exist- 
ence of  the  country  is  passing  through  a  season  of  sore 
difficulty.  According  to  the  system  finally  elaborated  by 
Ouvarov,  whom  Nicholas  I.  has  chosen  to  be  his  Minister 
of  Public  Instruction,  an  iron  despotism  and  a  censorship 
worthy  of  Metternich  are  appointed  the  national  and  tra- 
ditional basis  of  the  constitution  and  development  of  the 
Russian  commonwealth.  Here  we  have  the  inauguration 
of  official  nationalisniy  and  both  press  and  society,  with 
some  few  exceptions,  spontaneously  adopt  the  formula. 
In  the  Northern  Bee  we  see  literature  walking  hand  in  hand 
with  the  police  —  Grietch,  Boulgarine,  and  Senkowski, 
all  exceeding  each  other  in  dulness,  obscurantism,  and 
servility.  To  a  critic  who  accuses  him  of  having  written 
to  order,  Koukolnik,  one  of  the  contributors  to  this  paper, 
replies,  ^^  I  will  play  the  part  of  an  accoucheur  to-morrow, 


GOGOL  247 

if  I  am  so  directed."  One  branch  of  the  Slavophil  school, 
under  pretext  of  rehabilitating  the  national  past,  and  find- 
ing fresh  ideals  within  it,  applies  itself,  with  Chevirev 
and  Pogodine,  to  transferring  to  that  past  the  existing 
depravity  of  modern  ideas  and  habits,  and  ends  by  de- 
ducing therefrom,  as  the  traditional  direction  of  all  future 
development,  the  decrease  of  individuality  !  The  culmi- 
nating point  of  this  teaching  is  the  vehement  repudiation 
of  the  elementary  principles  of  all  civilisation. 

Such  was  the  moral  atmosphere  which  surrounded  the 
cradle  of  Nicholas  Vassili£vitch  Gogol  (1809-1852). 
By  one  of  those  seeming  miracles  so  frequent  in  literary 
history,  the  future  author  of  Dead  Souls  does  not  appear 
to  have  suffered  from  it. 

Born  of  a  small  land-owner's  family  in  the  govern- 
ment of  Poltava,  where  the  old  Cossack  legends  and 
traditions  were  still  fresh  and  strong,  he  brought  with 
him  to  his  school  at  Niejine  the  temperament,  the  ima- 
gination, and  the  intelligence  of  a  true  son  of  the  steppe. 
He  loathed  mathematics,  affected  to  despise  Greek  and 
Latin,  and  betrayed  an  equal  objection  to  German.  At  a 
later  period  he  was  to  bestow  the  name  of  ^'  Schiller  "  on 
a  character  in  one  of  his  stories,  a  caricature  of  a  German 
settled  in  Russia,  whose  stinginess  made  him  ready  to 
cut  off  his  nose  to  save  the  use  of  snuff,  and  so  metho- 
dical that,  for  physiological  reasons,  he  measured  the 
amount  of  pepper  introduced  into  his  food.  This  mania 
did  not  prevent  Gogol  from  reading  the  best  French  and 
German  authors  with  the  help  of  dictionaries,  and  even 
going  so  far  as  to  imitate  them. 

At  Nidjine  the  fashions  followed  those  of  Tsarskoi'^- 
Sielo.  The  pupils  of  the  college  prided  themselves  on 
having  a  journal  of  their  own,  and  in  it  Gogol  pubHshed^ 
17 


248  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

in  succession,  a  novel,  The  Brothers  Tvierdislavitchy ^  the 
subject  and  form  of  which  was  borrowed  from  the 
German  almanacs  of  that  period,  a  tragedy,  TJie  RobberSy 
the  source  of  which  will  be  easily  divined,  and  satires 
and  ballads,  all  of  them  equally  devoid  of  originality. 
When  he  left  college  in  1828,  he  was  a  young  enthusiast 
of  the  purest  romantic  cast,  who  dreamt  of  accomplish- 
ing some  mighty  thing  for  his  country,  who  looked 
on  himself  as  an  ill-used  genius,  and  already  claimed — 
at  eighteen — to  have  suffered  bitterly  at  the  hands  of  his 
fellow-men !  Two  characteristic  features,  destined,  as  time 
went  by,  to  attain  prodigious  proportions — his  ascetic 
tastes  and  his  love  of  power — complete  this  description 
of  *Gogors  moral  physiognomy.  He  departed  to  St. 
Petersburg,  to  find  employment.  He  secured  a  position 
as  copying-clerk  in  the  Ministry  of  Domains,  left  it,  not 
until  he  had  collected  a  number  of  bureaucratic  types 
of  which  he  was  to  make  use  later,  was  suddenly  seized 
with  a  desire  to  take  a  long  journey,  started,  armed 
with  a  sum  of  money  given  him  by  his  mother  for  quite 
a  different  purpose,  reached  Liibeck,  turned  back,  and 
began  to  form  other  plans.  First  he  would  be  an  actor, 
then  he  bethought  him  of  writing  a  poem  on  the  subject 
of  a  recent  unhappy  love  affair  of  his  own.  This  he 
called  Hans  Kuchelgarten^  and,  in  spite  of  all  its  preten- 
sions, it  is  no  more  than  a  debased  transcription  of  Voss's 
Louise.  The  work,  printed  under  the  pseudonym  of  V. 
Alov,  elicited  some  jeering  remarks  from  M.  Polevoi  in  the 
Moscow  Telegraph.  Otherwise  it  passed  unnoticed.  The 
copies  sent  to  the  booksellers'  shops  waited  in  vain  for 
purchasers.  Gogol  took  them  all  back,  hired  a  room  in 
which  to  burn  them,  every  one,  and  was  suddenly  seized 
with  a  fit  of  home-sickness. 


GOGOL  249 

These  iips  and  downs  of  feeling  are  common  enough 
among  beginners,  but  they  do  not  always  lead  to  so  for- 
tunate an  issue.  The  issue  in  this  case  was  a  book  called 
Evenings  at  the  Farm  of  Dikanka,  published  in  183 1. 
For  a  moment  it  struck  the  literary  world  into  a  kind  of 
stupor.  Nothing  of  the  sort  had  ever  been  seen  before. 
The  Ukraine  lived  and  moved  in  these  stories,  called  up 
in  a  vision  at  once  miraculously  precise  and  exquisitely 
attractive,  singing  and  ringing  with  the  hearty  laughter, 
just  touched  w^ith  a  spice  of  archness,  which  is  the  em- 
bodiment of  Little-Russian  mirth.  Was  it  a  true  picture  ? 
K'ot  quite,  as  yet.  Gogol  had  not  been  able,  at  the  very 
first,  to  cast  off  all  his  romantic  trappings.  Here  and 
there  he  over-poetised,  an,d  thus  misrepresented  his 
Ukraine.  And  one  thing  was  lacking  in  his  picture, 
sunny  as  it  was,  gay,  alive  with  changing  colour.  There 
were  no  tears  in  it. 

But  close  on  these  Evenings  came  another  series — 
Mirgorod — and  this  time  Pouchkine,  in  his  delight,  fell 
on  the  author's  neck.  Perhaps  the  truth  had  revealed 
itself  to  the  young  novelist  on  that  morning  w'hen  he 
knocked  at  the  ereat  .poet's  door,  and  learnt  to  his 
astonishment  that  Gogol  was  still  sleeping. 

*'  He  must  h^e  spe^t  the  night  in  composing  some 
fresh  work  !  "  PoiichJane  said. 

"  He  spent  the  night  at  cards,"  replied  the  servant. 

In  Mirgorod  we  hear  the  real  human  laughter  of  the 
man  who  was  to  write  Dead  Souls — a  laughter  with  tears 
in  it.  and  a  note  of  irony.  Yet  the  brilliant  success  of 
his  work  did  .not  satisfy  Gogol.  Like  Tolstoi'  in  later 
days — an  unconscious  artist  like  himself — he  was  always, 
from  the  heights  of  his  dream-fancy,  to  cast  off  the  chil- 
dren of  his  own  imagination  as  being  unworthy  of  it. 


2  50  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

He  now  began  to  think  of  a  History  of  Little  Russia^  and 
also  of  a  History  of  the  Middle  Ages^  which  was  to  reach 
eight  or  nine  volumes.  He  knew  little  beyond  what  his 
father,  a  great  retailer  of*  legends,  had  taught  him  of  the 
past  history  of  his  native  region.  With  feverish  haste  he 
began  to  collect  materials.  Fortunately  his  imagination 
proved  too  strong  for  him,  and  the  result  of  his  efforts 
was  Tarass  Boulba,  a  prose  poem,  still  very  romantic  in 
tendency,  based,  historically  and  ethnographically,  on  a 
hasty  perusal  of  Beauplan  and  Scherer,  but  instinct  with 
powerful  epic  feeling,  and  full  of  striking  and  dramatic 
episodes.  The  opening  scenes,  where  Tarass  wrestles 
with  his  sons  to  try  their  strength,  and  where  a  young 
Cossack,  to  assert  his  scorn  for  luxury,  rolls  in  the 
mud  in  the  fine  clothes  which  have  been  forced  upon 
him,  are  vigorous  and  truculent  reproductions  of  local 
manners. 

Farther  on,  there  are  fights  between  Cossacks  and 
Poles,  who  hurl  defiance  and  long  speeches  at  each 
other,  quite  in  the  Homeric  manner.  I  am  far  less  im- 
pressed by  the  much-bepraised  episode  of  the  scaffold, 
whereon  the  eldest  son  of  Tarass,  dying  without  a 
murmur  under  frightful  tortures,  which  make  his  bones 
crack,  is  heard  to  whisper — 

^^  Little  father  !  do  you  hear  it  ?  " 

And  the  old  Cossack,  standing  disguised  in  the  crowd, 
replies — 

"I  hear!" 

This  is  a  mere  melodramatic  trick. 

The  History  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  never  to  get 
beyond  the  planning  stage.  All  Gogol  did  in  this  line 
was  to  insert  in  his  Arabesques  a  few  apparently  learned 
essays,    which    Bielinski   thought    so    damaging    to   the 


GOGOL  251 

author's  budding  glory  that  he  refused  to  look  into  them 
seriously.  But  the  presumptive  historian  was  allotted  a 
professorial  chair.  His  first  lecture  was  very  brilliant.  He 
possessed  some  of  the  gifts  which  go  to  make  an  orator — 
fire  and  expressive  declamation.  But  when  the  second 
lecture  came,  the  matter  was  not  there.  The  professor 
had  come  to  the  end  of  his  knowledge  !  Within  a  year 
and  a  half  he  resigned  his  position.  An  attempt  at  a 
tragedy,  founded  on  events  in  English  history  at  the 
time  of  the  Norman  Conquest,  dates  from  the  period  of 
this  melancholy  failure  ;  after  which  Gogol  gave  himself 
up  to  his  natural  vocation. 

Here  he  wavered,  for  some  time,  between  the  influ- 
ence of  the  Romantics,  as  exemplified  in  Vn,  a  mys- 
terious tale  concerning  a  lover  bewitched  by  a  cruel 
mistress,  and  that  of  Hoffmann,  as  seen  in  T/ie  Portraity  a/ 
not  over-successful  piece  of  jugglery — fantastic  and  cir-j 
cumstantial.  It  was  not  till  1834  and  1835  that  a  new 
series  of  stories,  almost  uniform  in  character,  and  very 
different  from  their  predecessors  in  their  nature,  proved 
his  possession  of  a  definite  form,  which  was  to  be  that 
of  the  modern  Russian  novel.  These  were  The  Land- 
owners of  Old  Days,  The  Quarrel  of  Ivan  Ivanovitch  and 
Ivan  Nikiforovitchy  and  The  Mantle.  '^We  have  all," 
writes  one  of  his  contemporaries,  ^^  issued  from  Gogol's 
mantle."  And  Sergius  Akssakov,  who,  after  having 
followed  very  different  lines,  set  himself,  when  nearly 
sixty  years  of  age,  to  begin  his  literary  career  afresh 
under  the  young  writer's  influence,  might  well  apply 
the  assertion  to  his  own  case. 

In  these  tales  every  detail,  from  the  wardrobe  of  Ivan 
Nikiforovitch,  to  the  evil-smelling  boots  worn  by  the 
moujiks  who  stamped  up  and  down  the  Nevski  Prospect, 


P% 


252  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

was  drawn  from  nature.  They  give  us  a  bit  of  real  life  in 
all  its  trivial  circumstances^  and  seasoned,  more  dexter- 
ously than  were  the  Evenings,  with  what  some  people  have 
chosen  to  denominate  Russian,  but  which,  properly  speak- 
ing, should  be  called  English,  humour— an  equal  mixture, 
as  in  Dickens's  case,  of  irony  and  good-nature,  of  malice 
and  wide  sympathy,  of  sarcasm  and  intentional  moralis- 
ing. To  this,  Gogol  adds  a  power  of  presenting  things 
and  people  as  they  are,  without  appearing  to  care 
whether  the  effect  they  produce  be  good  or  bad.  The 
hero  of  The  Mantlcy  Akakii  Akakievitch,  is  a  scribe, 
with  qualities  both  touching  and  grotesque.  He  has  a 
genius  and  a  passion  for  copying  !  ^'  His  copying  work 
was  full,  to  him,  of  a  world  of  delightful  and  varied  im- 
pressions. Some  letters  were  his  favourites.  When  these 
had  to  be  re-written  he  felt  a  real  delight." 

It  has  been  truly  observed,  that  this  type  strongly 
resembles  one  of  those  created  by  Flaubert.  But  it  has 
also  been  remarked  that  the  French  novelist  falls  furiously 
upon  Pecuchet.  He  flouts  and  spurns  him,  pouring  out 
all  his  hatred  of  human  folly  on  the  idiot's  head.  Gogol 
jokes  with  his  simple  fellow,  and  all  the  time  we  are  aware 
of  an  undercurrent  of  tenderness,  such  as  one  feels  for  a 
child  whose  innocent  ways  amuse  one,  or  go  to  one's 
heart.  Those  who  have  seen  fit  to  perceive  in  this 
difference  the  abyss  that  lies  between  Russian  and 
French  realism,  between  the  laughter  touched  with 
tears  of  the  first,  and  the  dry  pitiless  smile  of  the 
second,  have  gone,  in  my  opinion,  much  too  far.  They 
have  lost  sight  of  the  original  genesis  of  each  of  these 
literary  movements,  which  were  neither  synchronic  nor 
parallel,  seeing  that  the  one  sprang  up  in  France,  fol- 
lowing on  all  the  excesses  of  sentimentalism  and  roman- 


GOGOL  253 

ticism — on  soil  which  centuries  of  Christian  culture  had 
saturated  with  idealism,  and  therefore  naturally  partook 
of  the  exaggerated  character  of  all  reactions,  while  the 
other  appeared  in  Russia  twenty  years  earlier,  under  the 
full  blaze  of  the  sentimental  and  pseudo-romantic  litera- 
ture of  the  period,  and  in  surroundings  which  were  the 
hereditary  domain  of  the  real,  the  simple,  and  the  true. 
Special  historical  conditions,  which  I  have  already  en- 
deavoured to  explain,  had  produced  in  the  Russia  of 
that  period  a  peculiar  mixture  of  idealism  and  realism. 
The  realist  element  represented  the  national  genius. 
The  idealist  doubtless  corresponded  with  certain  of  its 
natural  instincts — for  the  ideal  exists  everywhere — but 
it  proceeded  more  directly  from  foreign  sources.  The 
Mantle — I  fear  this  may  have  been  forgotten,  even  in 
France — is  contemporary  with  the  first  novels  of  George 
Sand,  on  whom  Dostoievski  was  to  bestow  the  title  of 
^^  divine,"  because  she  perceived  beauty  in  pity,  in  re- 
signation, and  in  justice.  And  this,  without  the  laughter, 
is  almost  the  very  principle  of  The  Mantle,  It  had  been 
left  to  George  Sand  to  gather  up  the  laughter,  with 
all  the  rest,  in  the  legacy  of  her  masters,  Sterne  and 
Richardson.  Laughter  through  tears  !  That  is  the  great 
charm  of  the  Sentimental  Journey  ! 

From  the  publication  of  The  Mantle  onwards,  the 
development  of  the  Russian  novel  has  been  compara- 
tively autonomous,  though  always  strongly  influenced 
by  the  English  realists  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  French 
romanticists  on  the  other.  Gogol  studied  Dickens ; 
Dostoievski  was  to  read  Victor  Hugo.  Saltykov-Chtche- 
drine  himself,  referring  to  the  author  of  Consuelo  in  an 
autobiographical  fragment,  wrote  :  "  Everything  good 
and  desirable,  all  our  pity  comes  to  us  thence."     And  this 


254  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Russian  realism,  imbued  with  English  sentimentalism, 
was  also  to  end  in  the  inevitable  reaction  which  was  to 
drive  its  last  representatives  first  into  the  arms  of  Zola, 
even  before  the  author  of  L Assommoir  had  converted 
France  to  his  naturalism,  and  then  into  the  embrace  of 
Maupassant.  Look  at  Chtchedrine.  He  still  recognises 
the  value  of  pity,  but  he  makes  little  use  of  it.  Then 
look  at  Tchekhov.  He  seldom  weeps,  and  hardly  ever 
smiles. 

In  fact,  if  we  are  to  admit  that  the  tendency  to  pity 
is  a  Russian  quality  (and,  as  I  have  shown,  I  have 
nothing  against  the  theory),  if  then,  for  this  reason,  the 
note  of  tenderness  found  easy  admittance  to  the  national 
literature,  and  has  therein  developed  a  great  intensity, 
there  is  still  something  besides  pity  in  the  complex  senti- 
ment with  which  such  characters  as  Akakii'  Akakievitch 
have  inspired  their  authors.  I  will  explain  this  matter 
later.  The  Mantle  was  published  in  1835.  A  year  later, 
TJie  Exa7niner  appeared  on  the  scene,  and  the  modern 
Russian  drama  came  into  being.  The  subject  had  been 
suggested  to  Gogol  by  Pouchkine,  who,  while  travelling 
to  Orenburg  in  search  of  information  for  his  history  of 
the  rebellion  of  Pougatchov,  had  been  arrested  by  an 
inspector  making  his  rounds.  It  was  a  ^'vaudeville" 
story,  on  the  whole,  turning  on  a  very  commonplace 
blunder.  Khlestakov,  a  good-for-nothing  young  fellow 
from  St.  Petersburg,  on  his  way  to  spend  his  holidays 
with  his  relations  in  the  country,  finds  himself  stopped 
by  lack  of  funds  in  a  small  provincial  town.  He  is  in 
imminent  danger  of  going  to  the  debtors'  prison,  when 
the  lively  imagination  of  the  local  officials  turns  him  into 
a  judge  sent  from  head-quarters  to  demand  an  account 
of  their  various  peccadillos. 


GOGOL  25  s 

Out  of  this  scenario  Gogol  has  constructed  a  master- 
piece, fiUing  it  with  figures  which,  in  spite  of  their  uni- 
versal tendency  to  caricature,  are  admirably  drawn,  and 
attacking  all  the  officialdom  of  the  period.  The  Governor, 
with  his  reproaches  to  those  who  rob  above  their  own 
rank,  was  particularly  a  figure  which  struck  the  popular 
imagination.  Gogol  flies  boldly  in  the  face  of  official 
optimism,  and  uncovers  the  gaping  wound  of  its  constitu- 
tion— the  venality  and  despotism  which  reigned  all  over 
the  administrative  and  judiciary  ladder,  from  the  highest 
to  the  lowest  rung — a  thoroughgoing  attack,  the  whole 
scope  of  which,  as  he  afterwards  proved,  he  did  not 
thoroughly  realise.  He  snatched  the  branding-irons  of 
satire  from  the  trembling  hands  of  Kant^mir,  Von  Visine, 
Krylov,  and  Griboiedov,  and  plunged  them  into  the  very 
quick  of  the  wound.  What  now  strikes  us  as  extraordi- 
nary is  that  the  operation  made  nobody  scream.  Nicholas 
allowed  the  piece  to  be  played,  attended  the  first  perfor- 
mance, and  led  the  applause.  It  was  characteristic  of 
the  man  who  said  ''  Russia  is  governed  by  the  Heads 
of  Departments,"  and  let  them  do  as  they  chose.  The 
public  was  merely  entertained.  The  Governor  and  his 
followers  struck  it  as  simply  funny.  The  idea  that  the 
order  of  things  they  represented  was  contrary  to  nature 
and  capable  of  alteration  was  scarcely  beginning  to 
dawn  upon  it.  And  even  nowadays  the  piece  is  fre- 
quently played,  and  always  raises  a  laugh.  Elsewhere, 
it  would  cause  gnashing  of  teeth. 

As  I  have  said,  the  author  himself  shared,  to  a  certain 
extent,  the  lack  of  perception  of  his  public.  Already, 
indeed,  in  his  method  of  conceiving,  and  more  especially 
oi/ee/m£-ihQ  phenomena  he  described,  another  feature, 
to  which  I  have  already  alluded — and  which,  as  it  be- 


2  56  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

came  general  in  the  Russian  novel,  was  to  endue  it  with 
a  particular  and  very  national  character — was  making 
itself  evident  :  I  mean  the  satirist's  indulgent  attitude 
towards  the  objects  of  his  satire.  He  caricatures  them, 
even  turns  them  into  monsters ;  he  conceals  nothing  of 
their  ugliness  and  meanness  ;  he  rather  exaggerates  them  ; 
but  such  as  they  are,  his  monsters  inspire  him  with  no 
feelings  of  horror  or  disgust.  He  has  a  regard  for  them. 
Sceptical  philosophy,  it  has  been  called,  or  tender  pity. 
I  should  rather  ascribe  it  to  his  being  accustomed  to  the 
sight  of  the  evil.  Public  life  in  Russia  is  still  so  stamped 
with  this  peculiarity  as  to  leave  no  room  for  doubt  upon 
the  subject. 

From  the  purely  artistic  point  of  view,  The  Examhier 
possesses  no  great  value,  nor  any  originality  what- 
ever. The  only  really  well-written  scene,  the  closing 
one,  is  directly  borrowed  from  Le  Misanthrope.  Yet 
none  the  less,  the  effect  it  produced  placed  Gogol  in 
quite  a  different  position,  and  straightway  the  enthu- 
siastic and  mystic  side  of  his  nature  rose  to  the  surface, 
and  he  felt  himself  called  to  play  a  new  part,  that  of  a 
prophet  and  a  preacher.  He  planned  another  work, — the 
crowning  effort  of  which  every  writer  dreams,  at  some 
period  of  his  life.  He  travelled  abroad,  spent  some  time 
in  Spain,  then  went  to  Rome,  and  published,  in  1842,  the 
first  part  of  his  Dead  Souls.  A  poem  he  called  it.  The 
very  word  proves  how  unconscious  the  creative  genius 
in  him  was.  Any  unwarned  reader  would  surely  expect 
an  elegy,  Tchitchikov,  the  hero  of  the  ^^poem,"  is  a 
scoundrel,  a  former  custom-house  official,  dismissed  for 
smuggling,  who,  to  repair  his  fallen  fortunes,  plans  an 
enormous  swindle.  The  number  of  serfs  owned  by  each 
proprietor  is  ascertained  by  means  of  a  periodical  census. 


GOGOL  257 

Between  one  census  and  another,  the  number  is  con- 
sidered to  be  unchanging,  and  the  souls — that  is,  the 
head  of  slaves  tallying  with  it — are  subject  to  all  the 
usual  transactions,  such  as  buying,  selling,  or  pawning. 
Tchitchikov's  idea  was  to  purchase,  at  a  reduced  figure, 
the  names  of  the  serfs  who  had  passed  from  life  into 
death,  but  who  were  still  borne  on  the  official  lists,  and  to 
pawn  them  to  a  bank  for  a  considerable  sum  of  money. 

It  may  well  be  imagined  that  this  circumstance  is 
only  an  excuse  for  describing  Tchitchikov's  progress  in  a 
troikay  driven  by  his  coachman,  Seliphane,  among  the 
various  land-owners  and  officials  with  whom  the  pur- 
chaser of  dead  souls  was  to  transact  business.  Gogol 
has  enlarged  his  field  of  observation,  so  as  to  include 
almost  the  whole  of  the  governing  classes,  and  chosen 
his  subject  with  a  view  to  the  satirical  scope  of  the  work. 
The  new  types  which  he  adds  to  his  gallery  of  social  suf- 
fering and  shame  correspond  with  this  idea.  Among 
the  serf-owners  we  have  Manilov,  who,  with  his  family, 
represents  that  kind  of  man  who  belongs  to  no  special 
category  at  all,  without  clearly-defined  moral  features, 
principles,  convictions,  or  character  ;  Nozdriov,  the  dash- 
ing man  of  pleasure,  who  is  on  the  most  intimate  terms 
with  everybody,  cheats  at  cards,  and  has  his  guests 
thrashed  ;  Sobaki^vitch,  the  substantial  man,  who  does 
not  mind  how  doubtful  a  business  is,  so  long  as  he  finds 
a  profit  in  it ;  and  Kourobotchka,  the  old  miser,  who 
reckons  up  her  serfs  and  her  roubles  with  equal  avidity. 
The  officials  and  the  middle-class  folk  are  on  a  par  with 
this  company.  Sobakievitch  says  of  the  Procurator 
that  ^'he  is  the  only  decent-mannered  man  in  the  town, 
— and  even  he  is  a  pig." 

The  whole  of  provincial  society,  the  whole  of  Russia, 


258  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

or  very  near  it,  figures  in  the  picture.  ^'  Heavens  !  what 
a  dreary  place  our  Russia  is  I  "  cried  Pouchkine  when 
he  had  read  the  book.  The  picture  it  presents  is  extra- 
ordinarily clear  and  brilliant.  The  author  possessed  a 
power  of  discerning  everything,  even  the  tiniest  and 
obscurest  details,  in  every  fold  and  corner  of  existence ; 
a  matchless  gift  of  reproduction,  a  dazzling  humour,  and 
a  style,  as  a  French  critic  described  it,  *^  that  even  Miche- 
let  might  have  envied,  now  popular,  now  eloquent,  now 
exact  as  any  picture,  now  shadowy  as  a  dream." 

The  author  himself  bears  witness  to  the  fact  that 
Pouchkine,  by  introducing  him  to  the  works  of  Cervantes, 
had  given  him  his  first  inkling  of  his  subject.  At  Rome, 
in  1840,  a  Russian  traveller  named  Boutaiev  noticed 
Gogol  sitting,  book  in  hand,  apart  from  the  gay  group  of 
artists  in  the  Cafe  Greco.  The  book  was  one  of  Dickens's 
novels. -jThe  frame  of  the  picture  w^as  certainly  supplied 
by  the  great  Spaniard,  the  canvas,  the  groundwork  of 
cheery  good-nature,  philosophic  indulgence,  and  hearty 
gaiety,  by  the  gifted  Englishman.  Only,  the  Russian 
novelist  has  altered  the  nature  of  what  he  borrowed  from 
Dickens,  by  his  false  application  of  it.  For  nobody  ever 
saw  Dickens  show  indulgence,  not  to  say  sympathy,  for 
/^wretches"  of  the  stamp  of  Sobakievitch.  Gogol  sus- 
pected this,  but,  like  the  Romantic  he  always  remained, 
and  the  theorist  he  was  fast  becoming,  he  justified  this 
modification,  and  even  set  it  up  as  a  principle.  In  it,  in 
fact,  he  perceived  a  trait  of  the  national  character — the 
sentiment  of  pity  for  a  fallen  creature,  no  matter  the 
depth  of  vileness  to  which  his  fall  may  have  lowered 
him. 

*^  Remember,"  he  wrote  to  one  of  his  friends,  "  the 
touching  sight  our  people  offer  when  they  bring  help  to 


GOGOL  259 

the  exiles  travelling  to  Siberia.  Each  brings  something 
of  his  own,  food,  money,  the  consolation  of  a  word  of 
Christian  kindness."  The  picture  is  a  true  one ;  but  let 
us  not  forget  that  it  represents  a  country  in  which  the 
death  penalty  only  exists  in  cases  of  political  offences  ^  and  in 
which  common-law  criminals  are  consequently  identified 
with  all  others,  to  an  extent  which  naturally  leads  to  con- 
fusion in  the  simple  minds  and  elementary  feelings  of  the 
populace.  The  idea  that  these  exiles  may  be  very  honest 
folk,  even  heroes  and  martyrs,  is  one  of  ancient  origin. 
The  feelings  with  which  it  is  connected  are,  happily, 
common  to  every  country.  Gogol,  when  he  ascribed  an 
exclusively  national  character  to  them,  was  making  a 
concession  to  the  Slavophil  crotchet,  and  when  he  applied 
them  to  the  vulgar  scamps  of  his  Dead  Souls,  he  perverted 
them  altogether.  When  M.  de  Vogue  describes  them  as 
an  original  feature,  *^  evangelic  brotherhood,  love  for  the 
little  ones,  pity  for  the  suffering,"  destined  to  appear  all 
through  the  course  of  Russian  literature,  and  to  '^animate 
the  whole  of  Dostoievski's  work,"  he  certainly  falls  into 
an  historical  error.  The  trait,  as  to  Gogol,  is  derived 
from  Dickens.  In  Dostoievski's  case  it  was  to  originate 
in  a  different,  though  also  a  foreign  quarter,  which  I 
shall  duly  indicate. 

Gogol  has  further  allowed  his  gift  for  romantic 
caricature  to  distort  the  accuracy  of  his  vision,  and 
thus  constantly  exaggerate  every  feature.  A  society 
made  up  of  nothing  but  such  people  as  Manilov, 
Nozdriov,  and  Sobakievitch,  could  not  exist.  The  author 
needed  the  assistance  of  Bielinski  and  Herzen,  before 
he  realised  this  aspect  of  his  creation,  and  the  meaning 
resulting  from  it.  The  two  critics  were  more  clear-sighted 
than  Nicholas,  who  had  bestowed  a  travelling  pension 


2  6o  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

on  the  novelist.  The  Examiner  and  Dead  Souls  con- 
stituted the  investigation  and  disclosure,  which  were  to 
end  in  the  condemnation,  before  trial,  of  a  guilty  society. 
It  was  some  time  before  Gogol  could  grasp  the  reality 
of  the  part  of  public  accuser  with  which  his  Work  had 
endued  him.  And  w^hen  conviction  came  he  was  horri- 
fied. What  !  was  this  his  work  ?  This  the  end  of  his 
dream  ?  He  had  sought  to  serve  his  country,  and  he 
had  cast  this  shame  upon  her  !  Ever  since  his  visit  to 
Spain  and  Italy  he  had  been  sliding  down  the  slope, 
as  Joukovski  had  slid  before  him.  Let  not  my  readers 
forget  that  The  Examiner  had  encountered  Tchadaiev's 
letter,  which  was  now  arousing  a  recrudescence  and 
outburst  of  fervent  nationalism.  Between  the  multiple 
charms  of  Roman  Occidentalism,  the  seductions  of  Mys- 
ticism, and  the  blandishments  of  Slavophilism,  Gogol's 
reason  beheld  a  great  gulf.  At  first  he  would  have 
protested  against  the  premature  conclusions  w^hich  were 
being  drawn  from  his  Dead  Souls,  The  poem  was  to  be 
in  three  parts,  and  it  was  a  slander  on  Russia  to  pre- 
tend the  first  was  a  complete  picture  of  the  country. 
Other  aspects,  bathed  in  ideal  beauty,  were  yet  to  be 
revealed.  But  before  proceeding  to  that,  he  was  resolved 
to  have  an  explanation  with  his  readers,  and  for  this 
purpose  he  proposed  to  publish  extracts  from  his  own 
correspondence.  ^'  Put  all  your  business  aside,"  he 
Wrote  in  1846  to  his  friend  Pletniev,  ^'and  busy  your- 
jelf  about  this  book ;  everybody  needs  it."  The  book 
thus  heralded  as  a  revelation,  a  new  gospel,  appeared 
in  the  following  year,  and  proved  a  bitter  disappoint- 
ment. Gogol,  while  claiming  that  his  previous  book 
proved  his  prophetic  authority  and  gift,  actually  repudi- 
ated  the   natural   meaning   of   that   w^ork.      He    under- 


GOGOL  261 

look  the  apology  of  the  political,  social,  and  religious 
regime  which  had  produced  his  Sobakievitch  and  his 
Nozdriov.  His  Letters  to  my  Friends  were  epistles  full 
of  ghostly  advice,  mingled  with  addresses  on  literary 
subjects.  They  glorified  the  Tsar  of  Love  and  his  des- 
potic power,  which  softened  the  harshness  of  the  law, 
and  healed  the  bitter  sufferings  of  the  people.  They 
peered  at  the  vain  fancies  of  the  Western  philosophers, 
and  appealed  from  them  to  the  National  Church,  the 
only  legitimate  source  of  the  necessary  virtues. 

The  book  also  contained  a  sort  of  literary  testament. 
In  it,  the  author  announced  his  decision  never  to  write 
again,  because  his  whole  future  existence  was  to  be 
devoted  to  the  search  after  truth,  both  for  the  good  of 
his  own  soul  and  for  the  common  welfare.  But  he  still 
held  that  what  he  had  written  deserved  admiration,  and 
gave  a  lengthy  explanation  of  the  reasons  on  which  he 
based  this  opinion.  He  strengthened  his  argument  by 
the  ingenuous  assertion  that  Russia  would  lose  a  great 
poet  in  the  person  of  the  author  of  Dead  Souls. 

Contrary  to  the  Russian  opinion  of  that  day,  which 
seems  to  me  still  to  obtain,  M.  de  Vogiie  denies  the 
mystic  character  of  this  protest,  although  he  recognises 
it  as  an  echo  of  contemporary  Slavophil  teaching.  ^'  M. 
Akssakov,"  he  says,  ^^and  the  leaders  of  the  present 
Slavophil  school,  expound  the  same  doctrines,  with 
even  greater  fervour.  Nobody  in  Russia  accuses  them 
of  mysticism."  I  fear  this  is  no  argument.  Words  and 
ideas  may  well  carry  a  different  weight  from  elsewhere 
in  a  country  where  even  men  are  in  the  habit  of  calling 
each  other  ^^my  little  pigeon"  !  In  a  gathering  of  Russian 
friends,  most  of  them  very  practical  men,  I  expressed  my 
astonishment  at  having  found  in  such  a  writer  as  Tolstoi 


262  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

the  idea  of  the  feminine  character  of  the  city  of  Moscow. 
They  were  all,  without  exception,  surprised  at  my 
astonishment.  ^^  But  it  is  quite  natural.  Moscow  must 
be  feminine,  just  as  St.  Petersburg  is  masculine  ! "  It 
appeared  quite  evident  to  them.  Gogol's  last  years 
sufiice,  I  think,  to  settle  this  dispute.  In  spite  of  his 
solemn  farewell  to  literature  he  wrote  again,  showed 
some  of  his  friends  the  second  part  of  Dead  Souls y  and 
once  more  his  readers  were  disappointed.  The  reap- 
pearance of  Tchitchikov,  his  coachman,  and  of  the  troika 
with  its  three  lean  horses,  was  gladly  welcomed.  But 
the  ideal  Russia  described,  represented  by  the  Prince- 
Governor,  ^^an  enemy  of  fraud,"  who  confounds  the 
dishonest  officials,  and  brings  back  the  law  of  liberty 
to  the  town  ;  and  by  Mourassov,  the  rich  and  pious 
manufacturer,  a  millionaire  and  a  lay  saint,  who 
preaches,  pardons,  and  sets  everything  in  order,  is  so 
unexpected  as  to  be  disconcerting.  Mourassov  has 
since  been  easily  recognised  as  the  M.  Madeleine  of 
Les  Aliserables,  and  one  still  wonders  where  the  author 
found  the  rest  of  his  story. 

Gogol  burnt  his  manuscript,  wrote  another,  and  burnt 
it  again.  Nothing  remains  but  a  few  fragments,  which 
were  published  after  his  death.  At  one  moment  he  com- 
mitted all  his  books  and  papers  to  the  flames.  At  the 
same  time  he  was  giving  the  whole  of  his  Government 
pension  to  the  poor,  and  was  himself  in  most  distress- 
ing financial  straits.  In  1848  he  made  a  pilgrimage 
to  Jerusalem,  and  returned  from  it  in  a  condition 
of  excitement  which  was  steadily  to  increase.  He 
began  wandering  from  house  to  house.  His  chance 
entertainers  used  to  see  him  arrive  with  a  little  valise 
stuffed    with   pamphlets,    newspaper   articles,    critiques, 


GOGOL  263 

treatises  relating  to  himself — his  only  possession.  "  He 
was,"  writes  one  of  his  contemporaries,  *^a  little  man, 
with  legs  too  short  for  his  body  ;  he  walked  crookedly, 
clumsy,  ill  dressed,  and  rather  ridiculous-looking,  with 
his  great  lock  of  hair  flapping  on  his  forehead,  and  his 
large  prominent  nose."  ''A  fox-like  face,"  says  Tour- 
gueniev,  ^*  with  something  of  the  air  of  a  professor  in  a 
provincial  town."  He  had  altogether  ceased  writing 
now,  and  scarcely  spoke.  He  had  periodical  attacks  of 
fever,  and  fits  of  hallucination.  He  died  in  1852,  worn 
out,  according  to  many  witnesses,  by  prayer  and  fasting," 
found  lifeless,  according  to  some,  before  the  holy  pic- 
tures, where  he  often  spent  his  nights.  He  was  in  his 
forty-fourth  year. 

The  event  attracted  but  little  attention.  To  the  mass 
of  the  public  he  had  long  been  dead,  swept  away  on  that 
fatal  tide  which  so  mercilessly  pursued  the  writers  of  his 
generation.  This  fact  has  been  wrongly  regarded  as  a 
mystery.  It  was  natural  that  a  generation  so  suddenly 
brought  into  contact  with  an  ocean  of  new  ideas  should 
turn  giddy  on  the  edge  of  the  abyss,  and  lose  its  balance. 

The  Letters  to  my  Friends  have  met  with  an  unex- 
pected piece  of  good  fortune  in  these  later  days.  Tolstoi' 
took  it  into  his  head  to  constitute  himself  their  apologist, 
and  other  admirers  followed  suit.  M.  P.  Matvieiev  has 
affirmed,  in  articles  published  in  the  Russian  Messenger 
of  1894,  that  the  book  had  outstripped  its  own  times.  A 
popular  edition  has  recently  appeared  with  the  sugges- 
tive title,  Gogol  as  a  Teacher  of  Life,  When  he  drew  up 
this  profession  of  faith,  Gogol  was  certainly  sincere.  He 
has  expressed  what  Carlyle  calls  a  man's  "religion," 
without  attaching  any  dogmatic  sense  to  the  word.  But 
he  was  quite  devoid  of  any  philosophical  education,  and 
18 


264  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

the  favour  in  which  he  is  now  held  only  proves  how 
insufficiently  his  posterity  is  provided  in  this  respect. 

Gogol's  real  merit  is  his  plastic  power.  Nobody  can 
take  him  to  be  a  serious  thinker.  At  Rome  he  had  no 
eyes,  no  admiration,  no  sympathy  for  anything  but  the 
pomps  of  the  Papacy,  and  the  superannuated  glories  of 
its  ceremonies  and  its  street  processions ;  for  the  streets 
themselves,  narrow  and  dirty  as  they  were  ;  for  their  half- 
savage  denizens  ;  for  the  local  aristocracy,  with  its  noisy 
pleasures,  its  Corso,  and  its  carnival.  The  religious  ex- 
citement which  swallowed  up  his  closing  years  only 
accentuated  and  exaggerated,  to  the  utmost  extreme,  a 
very  old  tendency,  dating,  as  his  correspondence  proves^ 
from  his  earliest  youth.  In  his  nature  two  contradic- 
tory currents,  of  artistic  inspiration  and  ascetic  lean- 
ings, always  existed,  doubtless  derived,  in  this  native  of 
Little  Russia,  from  some  mingled  Muscovite  ancestry 
To  this  first  source  of  internal  discord  and  mental 
disturbance  must  be  added  a  further  contradiction,  that 
between  his  desire  for  social  activity  and  the  false  concep- 
tion of  society  which  he  owed  to  his  family  traditions.  He 
,  was  never  to  understand  anything  of  the  intellectual  pro- 
gress which  the  German  philosophy  had  developed  about 
him,  and  which,  indeed,  bore  him  onwards  without  his 
knowing  how  or  whither.  He  unconsciously  performed 
a  work  of  revolution,  while  he  himself,  in  his  own  soul, 
jremained  essentially  patriarchal  and  submissive.  Thus, 
for  a  prolonged  period,  he  never  cast  a  glance  on  the 
j  deep  and  organic  causes  of  the  incidents  of  corruption 
I  which  he  so  artistically  described.  When  his  eyes  were 
finally  opened,  the  emptiness  of  his  own  philosophical 
ideas  must  have  struck  him,  and  moved  him  to  accept  the 
teachings  of  others.     He  wavered  for  a  moment  between 


'] 


GOGOL:  GONTCHAROV  265 

Tchadaiev  and_Akssakov,  decided,"  finally,  in  favour  of  the 
latter,  and  ingenuously  set  himself  up  as  a  State  moralist, 
in  the  childish  conviction  that  it  would  suffice  for  him  to 
reveal  his  scheme  of  morality  to  governors  of  cities  and 
such  men  as  Nozdriov,  to  prevent  the  first-named  cate- 
gory from  stealing,  and  the  second  from  cheating  at 
cards. 

Need  I  add  that  among  the  French  critics  who  have 
studied  this  WTiter,  M.  Hennequin,  when  he  hails  him 
as  the  inventor  of  the  modern  tale,  seems  to  have  over- 
looked not  only  all  the  English,  French,  and  German 
prose  writers  of  the  second  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury and  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth,  but  also  a 
certain  Boccaccio,  who  lived  in  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  whose  Filicopo  and  Fiatnetta  certainly  hold  a  place 
of  some  importance  in  the  history  of  literature.  Gogol 
did  create  the  Russian  novel,  and  that  is  a  sufficient  title 
to  glory.  In  Russia,  as  a  writer  of  prose  and  craftsman 
of  style,  he  outdoes  Pouchkine  himself.  The  Queen  of 
Clubs  w-as  written  in  1834,  ^^<^  is  a  trifle.  He  won  the 
race  easily,  and  nobody  has  equalled  him  since  it  was 
run.  Gontcharov  and  Grigorovitch  were  his  direct  heirs 
in  the  department  of  novel-writing.  Ostrovski  was  his 
successor  in  the  drama. 

The  Successors  of  Gogol. 

Ivan  Aleksandrovitch  Gontcharov  (1814-1891) 
published  his  first  book,  A  Common  Story  (1847),  under 
the  auspices  of  Bielinski,  who  said  of  him,  ^^  He  is  a  poet 
and  an  artist ;  nothing  more."  He  judged  correctly.  The 
author  was  to  mark  the  difference  between  his  work 
and  that  of  Tourgueniev,  Dostoievski,  and  Tolstoi,  by  its 


266  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

almost  entire  absence  of  reflection  and  analysis.  His 
view  of  life  is  absolutely  archaic,  and  his  ideas  are  those 
of  the  time  of  the  Flood.  This  first  novel,  which  bears 
some  analogy  to  George  Sand's  Horace  (1841),  is,  in  fact, 
a  very  common  story  of  a  young  enthusiast  struggling 
with  the  realities  of  life — something  of  Balzac's  Rastig- 
nac,  who  brings  his  dreams  and  the  freshness  of  his 
youthful  soul  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  Moloch  of  Parisian  life. 
The  Russian  hero's  dream  is  modest,  and  the  reality 
which  runs  counter  to  it  is  of  a  very  commonplace  de- 
scription. Is  he  to  write  verses  and  sigh  for  the  love 
of  a  portionless  maiden,  or  is  he  to  go  into  business  and 
marry  an  heiress  ?  The  question  is  decided  in  favour  of 
the  second  alternative,  and  the  author's  sympathies  are 
with  the  first.  The  special  feature  and  charm  of  his  art 
are  to  be  found  in  this  opposition.  Gontcharov  is  a 
realist,  bent  on  reproducing  Nature  exactly,  even  in 
her  least  seductive  aspects,  but  with  a  wonderful  power 
of  wrapping  these  last  in  a  sort  of  poetic  haze,  which 
softens  their  more  unpleasing  colours.  The  hero  of  the 
book,  Adouiev,  has,  indeed,  no  specifically  Russian  char- 
acteristics. 

In  1848,  Gontcharov  published  some  fragments  of  a 
second  novel,  OblomoVy  which  was  not  to  be  finished  for 
another  ten  years.  In  the  interim,  the  author  travelled 
round  the  world  in  the  capacity  of  secretary  to  an 
admiral,  and  indited  the  story  of  his  voyage  in  two 
volumes  ;  but  his  mind  was  always  fixed  on  his  Oblomov. 
He  was  slow  in  conception,  but  prodigiously  swift  in 
execution.  It  is  asserted  that  the  work  he  took  ten  years 
to  prepare  was  written  in  forty-seven  days.  And  this 
time  he,  too,  succeeded  in  creating  a  type — a  personi- 
fication of  that  generic  apathy  which  was,  and  still  is,  the 


GONTCHAROV  267 

common  product  of  the  material  and  moral  conditions 
of  Russian  life,  but  which  attained  a  special  development 
in  the  heart  of  the  barchtchinay  amongst  the  rural  land- 
owners, previous  to  the  abolition  of  serfdom.  The  long 
Russian  winters  naturally  predispose  the  moujik  to  indo- 
lence and  inertia ;  the  despotic  regime  proscribes  all 
individual  effort,  which,  since  Novikov's  time,  is  gener- 
ally credited  with  a  Freemasonic  or  revolutionary  origin. 
But  when  the  time  for  labour  comes,  the  moujik  is 
occasionally  obliged  to  shake  off  his  torpor.  Nothing 
ever  disturbs  that  of  the  land-owner.  From  his  childhood 
he  has  been  accustomed  to  avoid,  and,  in  fact,  refuse  to 
undertake,  any  exertion  which  might  appear  to  compro- 
mise his  dignity,  by  diminishing  the  labour  of  the  ten 
or  twelve  persons  trained  to  make  any  effort  on  his  part 
unnecessary.  Here  then  we  behold  him,  doing  nothing, 
and  having  literally  nothing  to  do.  The  influences  of 
heredity,  of  education,  and  of  the  common  practice  of 
life  have  combined,  by  a  fatal  process  of  degeneration, 
to  render  him  incapable  at  once  of  any  spontaneous 
activity,  and  even  of  any  save  a  purely  passive  resistance 
to  external  pressure. 

There  is  indeed  a  hidden  thought,  or  rather  a  hidden 
feeling,  in  this  inertia.  The  Russian  mind  is  full  of 
such  reservations.  To  indicate  its  meaning,  we  must 
have  recourse  to  one  of  those  infinitely  comprehensive 
and  plastic  expressions  which  are  the  characteristic 
feature,  and  constitute  the  most  precious  wealth,  of  the 
language  of  the  country.  Imagine  a  man  who  finds 
himself  on  the  railroad  just  as  a  train  is  rushing  towards 
him.  He  sees  it  coming ;  he  knows  that  if  he  stays 
where  he  is,  he  will  certainly  be  killed,  and  that  a  slight 
movement  will   save  him  from  the  danger.      And  yet, 


268  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

out  of  a  sort  of  half-conscious  fatalism,  a  vague  and 
yet  obstinate  fancy  that  perhaps  the  train  will  stop  or 
run  off  the  rails  before  it  reaches  him,  he  does  not 
budge.  One  single  word,  in  the  mouth  of  a  slow  and 
obstinate  peasant,  suffices  to  express  the  whole  world 
of  dim  thoughts  and  unconscious  feelings  which  corre- 
spond with  this  particular  state  of  mind — avos  ! — per- 
haps ?  who  knows  ?  And  the  trait  produced  by  the  habit, 
common  to  both  master  and  slave,  of  always  depending 
on  some  one  or  something  else  for  the  government  of 
their  slightest  action,  occurs  in  both  classes. 

Gontcharov's  first  volume  is  entirely  taken  up  with 
the  story  of  one  day,  spent  by  the  hero  in  resisting  the 
various  solicitations  which  conspire  to  drag  him,  first 
from  his  bed,  and  then  from  the  downy  couch  on  which 
he  stretches  his  indolence  and  selfishness,  both  equally 
incurable ;  in  getting  rid  of  importunate  visitors,  and 
making  impossible  plans,  which  he  more  than  half  sus- 
pects will  remain  unfulfilled.  The  character  thus  drawn 
is  not  altogether  a  new  one.  It  is  Eugene  Onieguine 
in  another  incarnation,  corresponding  with  another 
phase  of  the  national  life.  And  it  is  Pietchorine  as  well. 
He  was  a  restless  man,  indeed,  and  Oblomov  was  an 
apathetic  being,  but  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  have 
ever,  or  will  ever,  do  anything,  because  there  is  nothing 
for  them  to  do  in  the  sphere  in  which  their  birth  has 
placed  them.  Even  in  their  intercourse  with  w^omen 
their  attitude  is  identical.  They  are  both,  like  Onieguine, 
very  susceptible  to  the  charrns  of  the  fair  sex,  and  very 
enterprising  indeed  in  their  dealings  with  it.  But  both 
are  inclined  to  give  up  alllhoughts  of  love,  the  moment 
its  claims  threaten  to  encroach  on  their  liberty,  their 
indolence,  or  their  selfish  convenience.     In  the  second 


GONTCHAROV  269 

volume,  Oblomov  meets  with  the  typical  woman  of  the 
Russian  novel,  the  being  of  intelligence,  tenderness,  and 
originating  power,  who  alone  would  seem  capable  of 
rousing  this  sluggard  into  a  burst  of  energy.  For  a 
moment  she  appears  to  succeed,  but  the  organs  of 
activity  and  volition  which  she  stirs  in  the  young  man's 
soul  soon  prove  hopelessly  stunted,  and  withered  by 
neglect,  and  Oblomov  goes  back  to  his  couch  and  his 
farniente. 

In  addition  to  this  brave  and  tender-hearted  Olga, 
w^ho  will  soon  find  somebody  to  console  her  for  her 
failure,  Gontcharov,  like  Gogol,  has  set  himself  to  call 
up  an  ideal  figure,  the  personification  of  masculine 
energy.  My  readers  will  be  surprised  to  find  he  has 
gone  to  Germany  for  this  type,  and  yet  more  so  that 
all  he  should  have  discovered  there  is  a  business  man, 
active  and  hard-working.  Olga's  marriage  with  Stoltz 
cannot  be  accepted  as  a  final  solution. 

The  first  part  of  Oblomov  produced  rather  a  tiresome 
effect.  In  its  pages  the  author  had  given  the  first  speci- 
men of  that  minuteness  of  description  which  has  since 
been  so  much  abused  by  the  French  realists.  When  his 
hero  has  to  write  a  letter,  you  learn  to  know  even  the 
watermark  upon  his  writing-paper,  the  colour  of  his 
ink,  and  the  external  qualities  and  intrinsic  virtues  of 
his  pen.  The  second  part  made  a  great  sensation.  It 
was  published  on  the  very  eve  of  a  great  act  of  emanci- 
pation, and  constituted  a  fresh  argument  in  favour  of 
the  reform.  The  habit  contracted  by  the  public,  of 
reading  between  the  lines,  made  it  recognise  many  un- 
spoken sentiments,  of  which  the  author  would  appear 
to  have  been  quite  unconscious.  He  proved  it  some 
years  later,  when  he  endeavoured  to  enter  the  intellectual 


270  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

and  political  struggle  of  the  day  in  the  pages  of  his 
Obryv  (precipice).  It  was  an  utter  failure.  After  that 
period  Gontcharov  only  published  a  few  sketches,  and 
an  excellent  analysis  of  The  3Iisfortune  of  being  too  Clever. 

As  a  painter  of  aristocratic  or  bourgeois  society, 
Dmitri  Vassilievitch  Grigorovitch  (1822-1900)  was 
a  mere  collector  of  snapshots^  and  his  pictures  lack  both 
necessary  precision  and  correct  distribution  of  light 
and  shade.  The  only  department  in  which  he  rose 
above  mediocrity  was  in  his  stories  of  the  popular  life.  In 
these  he  was  Tourgueniev's  forerunner,  opening  the  way 
before  him,  and  making  even  a  more  direct  and  overt 
attack  than  his,  on  the  abuses  of  serfdom.  His  Villagey 
the  first  in  order  (1846)  of  a  series  of  little  master-pieces, 
more  or  less  directly  inspired  by  George  Sand,  is  remark- 
able for  its  powerful  expression  and  depth  of  feeling 
with  regard  to  this  subject.  The  young  wife  of  a  rural 
land-owner,  just  arrived  in  the  country,  has  a  fancy  to  see 
a  peasant  wedding.  To  satisfy  her  desire,  the  first  maiden 
and  the  first  young  man  to  be  found  are  desired  to  marry. 
They  are  not  acquainted,  they  each  have  another  attach- 
ment, they  are  quite  unsuited  to  each  other.  But 
none  of  these  facts  are  allowed  to  be  of  the  slightest 
importance.  This  story,  with  Antony  the  Unlucky  (1848) 
and  the  Valley  of  SyniMoVy  made  Grigorovitch's  reputa- 
tion as  a  Russian  Beecher-Stowe.  In  The  Fishers  (1853) 
and  Ihe  Colonists  (1855)  he  enlarged  his  borders,  and 
set  forth  all  the  poverty-stricken  existence  of  the  peasants 
of  the  Oka  River,  all  the  dreariness  of  factory  life,  and  all 
the  detestable  arbitrariness  of  the  proprietors. 

These  studies  still  preserve  their  ethnographical  value, 
and  the  figures  of  Glieb,  the  fisherman,  and  Zakhar,  the 
factory-worker,  have  long  been  accepted  as  the   most 


OSTROVSKI  271 

exact  and  expressive  reproductions  of  the  popular  charac- 
teristics. But  Grigorovitch  was  no  psychologist.  His 
great  strength  lies  in  his  narrative  talent,  which,  ill 
served  as  it  is  by  a  very  poor  skill  in  composition,  is  apt 
to  fritter  itself  away  and  lose  its  bearings,  when  its  field 
of  execution  becomes  too  extended. 

I  feel  some  embarrassment  w^hen  I  come  to  speak  of 
the  great  playwright,  Ostrovski.  His  pieces  have  held  the 
Russian  stage  for  half  a  century,  and  their  reputation  still 
stands  high.  In  his  own  country  he  is  currently  accepted, 
not  only  as  the  creator  of  the  national  drama,  but  as  the 
renewer  of  the  scenic  art  from  a  more  general  point  of 
view ;  and  I  clearly  see  that,  even  in  the  West,  his  theory 
is  in  course  of  acceptation.  But  in  this  theory,  which 
consists  in  knocking  down  a  corner  of  the  famous  'Svall 
of  private  life,"  and  revealing  what  lies  behind  it,  in  all 
the  natural  complexity  and  apparent  disorder  which  go 
to  make  up  this  life,  I  recognise  an  absolute  negation  of 
theatrical  art,  and  of  Nature  herself.  And  this,  because  it 
is  founded  on  an  appearance  which  is  false,  the  impression 
of  disorder  in  Nature  being  merely  a  mistaken  estimate 
on  our  part.  Ostrovski's  characters  come  and  go,  talk  on 
indifferent  subjects,  until  the  moment  when,  all  of  a 
sudden — for  on  the  stage  things  must  happen  suddenly — 
the  commonplaceness  of  their  behaviour  or  of  their 
conversation  reveals  the  comic  or  dramatic  elements  of 
the  ^'object  of  the  scene."  And  I  am  told  that  this  is 
the  process  of  real  life  !  Yes,  indeed,  of  real  life  extend- 
ing over  a  space  of  several  years.  But  the  playwright 
reduces  this  real  period  to  one  of  a  few  hours.  By  so 
doing,  he  disturbs  the  natural  balance  of  circumstance, 
and  the  only  method  of  re-establishing  it,  and  escaping 
a  false  presentment,  is  the  use  of  art — that  is  to  say,  of 


272  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

interpretation.  The  drama  lives  by  synthesis,  and  it  is 
going  against  its  nature  (for  it  has  a  nature  of  its  own) 
to  attempt  to  introduce  analytical  methods,  which  belong 
to  a  different  order  of  creation,  into  its  system. 

The  son  of  a  general  business  agent  at  Moscow, 
Alexander  Nicolai£vitch  Ostrovski  (1824-1886),  was 
still  devoid  of  even  elementary  education  when  he  pub- 
lished his  first  dramatic  efforts  in  1847.  He  filled  up  this 
void  by  studying  and  adapting  foreign  models,  and  did  not 
always  choose  the  best.  Living  in  the  Zamoskvorietchie\ 
and  mixed  up,  in  consequence  of  his  father's  profession,  in 
the  life  of  the  small  Muscovite  tradesmen,  he  set  himself 
to  study  and  reproduce  the  manners  and  customs  of  that 
class,  and  succeeded  in  attaining  a  point  of  realism  similar 
to  that  of  Gogol  in  another  sphere.  The  subject  of  his 
first  great  comedy.  Between  ourselves^  we  shall  settle 
it  {Svo'i  lioudi  sotchtiemsid),  published  in  1850,  but  not 
performed  till  ten  years  later,  was,  like  that  of  Dead 
Soidsy  the  story  of  a  swindle  as  mean  as  it  was  impro- 
bable. A  shopkeeper,  a  kind  of  comic  King  Lear,  takes 
it  into  his  head  to  make  over  his  fortune  to  his  clerk, 
and  to  marry  him  to  his  own  daughter — all  to  cheat  his 
creditors  by  means  of  a  sham  bankruptcy.  He  arranges 
with  his  son-in-law  to  pay  them  25  per  cent.,  or  more,  if 
necessary.  But  the  rascal,  once  in  possession  of  the 
funds,  refuses  to  pay  anything  at  all,  and  allows  his 
miserable  father-in-law  to  be  haled  to  prison.  The  elder 
man  had  no  reason  for  committing  the  fraud ;  his  busi- 
ness was  a  prosperous  one ;  and  the  author,  to  make 
us  realise  the  corruption  of  thought,  the  absence  of  prin- 
ciple, and  the  demoralisation  touched  with  despotic 
fancy  reigning  in  that  sphere  of  underhand  dealing, 
draws  him  as,  on  the  whole,  a  worthy  fellow. 


OSTROVSKI  273 

Ostrovski's  second  great  success,  Every  one  in  his 
own  place  {Nie  v  svot  sani  nie  sadis),  played  in  1853,  gave 
rise  to  a  great  deal  of  controversy.  It  also  is  concerned 
with  a  samodour  shopkeeper,  that  is  to  say,  one  who  has 
preserved  the  features  of  originality  and  despotic  fan- 
cifulness  peculiar  to  the  old  Muscovite  type — whose 
daughter  elopes  with  a  nobly- born  fortune-hunter. 
The  gentleman,  learning  that  her  father  has  disinherited 
her,  leaves  her  to  her  fate,  and  the  poor  creature  re- 
turns to  the  parental  hearth,  covered  with  confusion 
and  disappointment.  The  subject,  it  will  be  perceived, 
is  by  no  means  novel,  and  the  author's  development 
of  it  is  not  over-clear.  Some  critics  have  taken  it  to  be 
an  apology  for  the  patriarchal  regime  ;  others  regard 
it  as  a  condemnation  of  that  system. 

The  treatment  of  a  subject  will  not  always  atone  for 
its  commonplace  nature.  Ostrovski,  in  pursuance  of  a 
theory  dear  to  Bielinski,  depended  on  his  actors  for  the 
development  of  his  characters,  which  he  sketched  very 
lightly.     He  left  them  a  great  deal  to  do. 

The  most  celebrated,  and  certainly  the  best  of  all  his 
plays,  is  The  Storm,  This  brings  us  into  the  upper  com- 
mercial class  in  the  provinces.  During  the  absence  of  her 
husband,  who,  both  on  account  of  business  matters  and  to 
avoid  the  tedium  of  life  in  a  home  rendered  odious  by  the 
presence  of  a  severe  and  quarrelsome  mother,  leaves  his 
wife  far  too  much  alone,  Catherine,  a  young  woman 
full  of  dreams  and  enthusiasms,  is  false  to  her  marriage 
vow.  Ostrovski  makes  her  public  avowal  of  her  sin, 
under  the  influence  of  the  nervous  agitation  caused  by 
a  thunderstorm,  which  stirs  all  her  religious  terrors  and 
alarms,  the  culminating  point  and  dramatic  moment  of 
his  piece.     This  idea  was  to  be  repeated  by  Tolstoi'  in  his 


274  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Anna  Karenine.  The  unhappy  wife,  cursed  by  her 
mother-in-law  and  beaten  by  her  husband,  as  is  the 
custom  in  that  class,  goes  out  and  drowns  herself. 
In  this  play,  Ostrovski's  object  was  to  depict  the  miser- 
able condition  of  the  Russian  woman  of  the  middle 
class,  in  which,  in  his  day,  the  traditions  of  the  Domostroi 
still  held  good,  and  the  corruption  existing  in  this  class, 
due,  in  part,  to  a  latent  process  of  decomposition, 
under  the  action  of  the  new  ideas  which  were  beginning 
to  percolate  from  without.  Catherine  is  a  romantic, 
with  leanings  towards  mysticism.  She  sins,  and  curses 
her  love  and  her  lover  even  as  she  yields  to  them.  Her 
husband  is  a  brute,  with  coarse  instincts  and  some  good 
feeling.  His  mother  is  a  domestic  tyrant,  brought  up  in 
the  school  of  Pope  Sylvester.  When,  at  the  moment  of 
her  indifferent  husband's  departure,  Catherine,  with  a 
presentiment  of  her  impending  fate,  casts  herself  on  his 
breast,  beseeching  him  to  stay,  or  to  take  her  with  him, 
the  old  woman  interferes  : — 

''  What  is  the  meaning  of  this  ?  Do  you  take  him  for 
a  lover  ?  At  his  feety  wretched  creature  !  cast  yourself  at 
his  feet!'' 

And  so  Catherine  seeks  in  another  man's  arms  the 
caress,  the  loving  words,  the  tender  clasp  for  which  her 
soul — the  soul  of  a  modern  woman — hungers. 

Dobrolioubov  claimed  to  see  other  things,  and  many 
more,  in  this  play.  According  to  him — he  has  covered 
seventy  pages  with  the  demonstration  of  his  idea — the 
author  has  hugely  advanced  the  literature  of  his  country 
by  realising  what  all  his  predecessors,  from  Tourgueniev 
to  Gontcharov,  had  vainly  attempted,  responding  to  the 
universal  and  pressing  demand  of  the  national  conscience, 
and  filling  the  void  in  the  national  existence  caused  by 


OSTROVSKI  275 

its  repudiation  of  the  ideas,  customs,  and  traditions  of 
the  past.  He  has  created  the  ideal  character  and  type 
of  the  future.  Which  is  it  ?  A  woman's  figure,  of 
course.  A  wonderful  conception,  according  to  Dobro- 
lioubov,  because  woman  has  had  to  suffer  most  from  the 
past ;  because  woman  has  been  the  first  and  the  greatest 
victim  ;  because  it  was  above  all  for  woman  that  the 
state  of  things  had  become  impossible.  But  who  is  this 
woman  ?  My  readers  will  hardly  guess  her  to  be 
Catherine.  DobroHoubov  was  only  four-and-twenty 
when  he  formulated  this  theory — a  somewhat  disturb- 
ing one  for  the  possessors  of  romantic  wives  and  dis- 
agreeable mothers-in-law.  His  youth  is  his  excuse. 
And  here  is  another.  Dostoievski  was  to  follow  suit, 
and  apply  the  same  theory  to  Pouchkine's  Tatiana^  after 
z.  fashion  yet  more  far-fetched. 

After  i860,  Ostrovski  conceived  the  idea  of  walking  in 
Pouchkine's  footsteps,  and  attempting  historical  drama 
in  the  style  of  Shakespeare.  He  had  already  borrowed 
much  from  the  foreign  stage.  In  his  Lost  Sheep  we  re- 
cognise Ciccom's  Pecorelle  smarrite  ;  in  A  Cafe,  Goldoni's 
Bottega  del  Caffe ;  in  The  Slavery  of  HusbandSy  A.  de 
Leris's  Les  Maris  sont  Esclaves,  His  imitations  of  the 
English  dramatist  were  less  successful.  Two  years  be- 
fore his  death,  having  early  quitted  an  administrative 
career  which  brought  him  nothing  but  disappointment, 
he  undertook  the  management  of  the  Moscow  Theatre. 
He  was  no  blagonadiojnyi  (a  man  possessing  the  confi- 
dence of  the  Government).  Though  not  directly  con- 
cerned in  the  events  of  his  day,  he  shared  in  the  general 
ferment  of  reforming  ideas.  He  followed  the  same 
course  as  Gogol — the  Gogol  of  The  Examiner  and  the 
first  part  of  Dead  Souls,     His  earlier  plays,  until  1854, 


276  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

seem  to  be  systematically  devoted  to  the  representation 
of  types  of  perverted  morality.  After  that  date,  and 
influenced  by  the  Slavophil  movement,  he  betrays  a 
budding  sympathy  for  certain  phases  of  the  national 
life,  the  idealisation  of  which  was  henceforth  to  be  his 
endeavour.  In  Every  Man  in  his  own  place  he  allots  the 
most  sympathetic  parts  to  persons  belonging  to  the  old 
intellectual  and  moral  regime,  such  as  Roussakov,  the 
unpretentious  and  upright  shopkeeper,  and  Avdotia 
Maksimovna,  the  austere  and  simple-minded  middle- 
class  woman.  All  the  rest — Vikhorev,  Barantchevski, 
Arina  Fiodorovna — have  been  poisoned  by  Western 
culture,  and  have  carried  the  elements  of  disorder  and 
corruption  into  their  own  circle.  When  the  reforms  of 
1861  drew  near,  the  author's  point  of  view  underwent 
another  change,  and  he  strove  to  bring  out  the  back- 
wardness and  excessive  folly,  the  obstinate  samodourstro 
of  ihQ  pamiechtchiki  {vur?^  proprietors),  as  compared  with 
the  enlightened  spirit  of  the  younger  generation. 

His  plays,  as  a  rule,  are  neither  comedies  nor  dramas. 
Dobrolioubov  called  them  ^^  representations  of  life."  The 
audience  is  not  given  anything  to  laugh  at,  nor  yet  any- 
thing to  cry  over.  The  general  setting  of  the  piece  is 
some  social  sphere  which  has  little  or  no  connection 
with  the  characters  we  see  moving  in  it.  These  characters 
themselves  are  neutral  in  tint — neither  heroes  nor  male- 
factors. Not  one  of  them  rouses  direct  sympathy. 
They  are  all  overwhelmed  by  a  condition  of  things  the 
weight  of  which  they  might  shake  off,  the  danger  of 
which  would  vanish,  if  they  showed  some  little  energy. 
But  of  this  they  have  not  a  spark.  And  the  struggle  is 
not  between  them,  but  between  the  facts,  the  fatal  in- 
fluence of  w^hich  they  undergo,  for  the  most  part,  un- 


OSTROVSKI  277 

consciously.  A  sort  of  gloomy  fatalism  presides  over 
this  conception  of  mundane  matters,  an  idea  that  any 
man  belonging  to  a  particular  moral  type  must  act  in  a 
particular  manner.  The  natural  deduction  from  this 
theory  is,  that  actions  are  not  good  or  bad  in  themselves. 
They  are  merely  life.  And  so  life  itself  is  neither  good 
nor  evil.  It  is  as  it  is,  and  has  no  account  to  give  to 
anybody.  Ostrovski's  pieces  have  generally  no  denoue- 
ment, or,  if  they  have  one,  it  is  always  of  an  uncertain 
nature.  The  dramatic  action  never  really  closes,  it  is 
broken  off  ;  the  author  cutting  it  short,  not  by  an  effective 
scene  or  phrase,  but  frequently,  and  deliberately,  at  the 
most  commonplace  point,  or  in  the  middle  of  a  rejoinder. 
He  seems  to  avoid  effect  just  where  it  naturally  would 
occur  in  the  situation.  Ostrovski's  admirers  hold  this  to 
be  his  manner  of  typifying  real  life,  which,  in  Nature, 
has  neither  beginning  nor  end.  I  have  already  made 
my  reservations  on  this  head  ;  and  I  am  glad  indeed  to 
affirm  that  no  other  Russian  writer,  save  Tolstoi',  has 
painted  so  great  a  number  of  types  and  circles  corre- 
sponding with  almost  every  group  in  Russian  society. 
His  language,  full  of  power  and  fancy,  constitutes,  with 
that  of  Krylov,  the  richest  treasure-house  of  picturesque 
and  original  expressions  to  be  found  in  Russia.  Pouch- 
kine  had  already  declared  that  the  way  to  learn  Russian 
was  by  talking  to  the  Moscow  Prosvirnie  (the  women 
who  make  the  sacred  bread,  prosford).  They  taught 
Ostrovski  precious  lessons. 

Tourgueniev  also  enriched  the  national  stage  with 
several  pieces  which  cannot  be  reckoned  among  his 
master-pieces.  Pissemski,  in  his  Bitter  Fate  {Gorkaia 
soudbina)y  endowed  it  with  the  first  realistic  drama 
founded  on  peasant  life.     I  shall  discuss  it  later.     But, 


278  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

next  to  Ostrovski,  the  man  who  shed  most  glory  on  the 
modern  Russian  stage  was  Count  Alexis  Tolstoi. 

Even  now  the  trilogy  written  by  Alexis  Constan- 
TINOVITCH  Tolstoi  (1817-1875),  The  Death  of  Ivan  the 
Terribky  The  Tsar  Fiodor  Ivanovitchy  and  The  Tsar  BoriSy 
enjoys  a  great,  and,  in  some  respects,  a  legitimate  success 
in  the  author's  own  country.  Its  historical  feeling  is  deep 
and  generally  correct.  The  gloomy  spirit  of  despotism 
and  superstition  hovers  over  these  evocations  of  a  distant 
past,  and  breathes  icily  i.n  the  spectators'  faces.  But 
the  characters,  as  a  rule,  lack  clearness,  and  the  rhetoric 
of  the  never-ending  dialogues  and  soliloquies  strains  the 
attention.  In  his  Don  Juan^  dedicated  to  the  memory 
of  Mozart  and  of  Hoffmann,  Tolstoi  has  endeavoured 
to  re-establish  the  French  and  Spanish  type  of  this 
character.  To  my  thinking  he  has  only  placed  the 
mask  of  Faust  over  Don  Juan's  features,  and  the  effect 
of  the  effort  is  not  worth  the  trouble  it  gave. 

Alexis  Constantinovitch  also  made  his  mark  in  Rus- 
sian literature  as  a  lyric  and  satiric  poet.  Another 
Tolstoi,  whose  mighty  work  I  shall  presently  approach, 
was  to  introduce  some  really  new  characters  upon  the 
national  stage,  and  with  them,  a  form  of  dramatic  art  full 
of  originality  and  fruitful  in  expression.  But  before  his 
advent,  the  national  art  had  already  attained  its  sovereign 
expression  by  the  fusion,  which  Gogol  failed  to  realise, 
of  the  artist's  inspiration  and  the  artist's  conscious  endea- 
vour, in  the  novels  of  Tourgueniev. 

TOURGUfNIEV. 

Ivan  Serguidievitch  Tourgueniev  (18 18-1883)  was  born 
of  a  family  of  country  nobles  in  the  government  of  Orel. 


TOURGU^NIEV  279 

Among  his  ancestors  he  reckoned  that  Peter  Tourgue- 
niev  who  was  executed  on  the  lobnoie  iniesLO  for  having 
denounced  the  mock  Demetrius,  and  that  James  Tour- 
gueniev  who  was  one  of  Peter  the  Great's  jesters.  In 
1837,  when  he  was  passing  through  his  third  annual 
course  of  studies  at  the  St.  Petersburg  University,  Ivan 
Serguieievitch  showed  his  professor  of  literature,  P.  A. 
Pletniev,  a  fantastic  drama  in  verse,  Stenio,  which  that 
gentleman  easily  recognised  as  an  imitation  of  Byron's 
Manfred.  Though  of  no  particular  value,  it  showed 
some  promise  of  talent.  It  encouraged  Pletniev,  a  few 
months  later,  to  publish  some  verses  by  the  young  author, 
which  struck  him  as  being  better  inspired,  in  The  Contem- 
porary. But  very  soon  Tourgueniev  departed  to  Berlin, 
there  to  complete  his  studies,  according  to  the  custom  of 
the  day.  He  describes  himself  as  having  ^^  taken  a  header 
into  the  German  Sea,"  and  come  up  "an  Occidental" 
for  ever.  In  1841,  when  on  a  visit  to  Moscow,  where  his 
mother  resided,  he  came  into  contact  with  the  Slavophil 
group,  and  at  once  experienced  a  feeling  of  hostility 
to  it  which  was  steadily  to  increase.  Tsarism,  even  as 
idealised  by  the  Akssakovs  and  the  Kirieievskis,  was  always 
to  disgust  him.  He  tried  to  adapt  himself  to  the  regime, 
and  took  service  in  the  Chancery  of  the  Ministry  of  the 
Interior.  But  he  could  not  endure  it.  In  1843  the  poet 
bade  farewell  to  the  tchinovik^  cast  away  official  docu- 
ments, and  published,  over  the  initials  T.  L.,  a  Paracha 
in  rhyme,  of  which  Bi^linski  spoke  in  terms  of  praise. 
This  resulted  in  a  friendship,  followed  by  some  slight 
coldness.  Bielinski,  and  rightly,  as  Tourgueniev  after- 
wards acknowledged,  treated  some  other  poetical  attempts 
which  did  not  as  yet  foreshadow  the  gifts  displayed  in 
A  Sportsman' s  SketcheSy  in  less  tender  fashion.  A  mere 
19 


2 So  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

chance,  the  difficulty  in  which  Panaiev,  the  editor  of 
The  Contemporary y  found  himself,  with  regard  to  tilling 
up  one  number  of  his  publication,  in  1847,  acquainted  its 
readers  with  a  prose  story,  Khor  and  Kalinitch,  for  which 
Ivan  Sergui6ievitch,  who  was  already  losing  hope,  had 
not  dared  to  hope  such  good  fortune.  It  caused  general 
astonishment.  To  the  title  chosen  by  the  author,  Panaiev 
had  added  that  sub-title  of  his  own,  A  Sportsman's 
Sketches,  which  was  to  become  so  widely  known,  and 
thus  the  immortal  series  which  was  to  lay  the  foundation 
of  Tourgueniev's  glory  was  begun. 

Success  did  not  reconcile  the  author  to  social  sur- 
roundings in  which  his  tender  and  dreamy  nature  was 
exposed  to  so  much  that  gave  it  pain.  In  the  following 
year  he  left  Russia,  without  intending  to  return.  The 
continuation  of  his  Sketches  was  written  in  Paris.  There 
is  nothing  original  in  the  conception  of  the  work.  It 
recalls  Berthold  Auerbach's  village  tales,  and  the  pea- 
sant stories  of  George  Sand,  of  whom  Tourgueniev  used 
to  say,  '^She  is  one  of  my -saints!"  Even  in  Russia  it 
had  rivals,  in  the  shape  of  Grigorovitch's  tales  and  Nek- 
rassov's  poems,  all  of  them  founded,  like  it,  on  the  popular 
life,  and  saturated  with  the  same  spirit.  But  in  this  case 
the  subject  was  transformed  by  a  personal  art,  and  an 
equally  individual  inspiration.  The  art  was  that  of  a 
miniature  painter,  with  the  exquisite  gift  of  merging 
nature  and  man  into  one  harmonious  whole.  The  in- 
spiration was  that  of  a  born  revealer.  Tourgueniev  was 
the  first  person  in  Russia  to  see  in  the  Russian  peasant 
something  more  than  a  mere  object  of  pity — a  being  who 
could  feel  and  think,  with  a  soul  like  everybody  else, 
although  his  method  of  feeling  and  thought  was  especially 
his  own.     Thus  the  soul  that  Gogol,  the  Slavophil,  never 


TOURGUENIEV  281 

recognised,  was  revealed  to  Russia  by  Tourgueniev,  the 
Occidental ;  and  thus  it  was  that  the  author  of  the 
Sketches  became  one  of  the  most  active  agents  of  the 
emancipation.  Not  that  he  approached  the  problem  of 
"The  abolition  of  serfdom.  He  never  referred  to  it.  But 
after  having  drawn,  in  Khor  and  Kalinitch,  two  peasants 
who  escape  the  consequences  of  their  legal  status, — one 
because  he  lives  apart  in  a  swamp,  and  avoids  com- 
pulsory service  by  paying  a  fine,  the  other  because  he 
has  become  one  of  his  master's  hunt-servants  ;  one  of 
them  a  realist,  the  other  a  dreamer,  but  good-hearted, 
both  of  them  ;  one  faithful  and  tender,  the  other  cordial 
and  hospitable, — the  novelist  demonstrated,  in  a  fresh 
set  of  types,  the  various  deformations  which  serfdom 
could  produce  in  the  original  character  of  the  race,  such 
as  a  return  to  the  savage  state,  wild  temper,  brutality, 
ferocity,  as  in  the  case  of  lermolaiy  and  stupid  insensi- 
bility, as  in  that  of  Vlass. 

After  a  short  visit  to  Russia,  which  cost  him  a  month 
in  prison,  for  an  article  on  the  death  of  Gogol  (1852), 
Tourgueniev,  released  by  the  good  offices  of  Madame 
Smirnova — ^'  The  Our  Lady  of  Succour  of  Russian 
literature,"  as  she  w^as  called — settled  at  Baden-Baden,  in 
a  villa  close  to  that  occupied  by  the  Viardot-Garcia 
family.  He  had  met  the  famous  singer  of  that  name 
in  St.  Petersburg,  in  1845,  and  the  liaison  then  begun 
was  destined  to  continue  till  he  died.  From  this 
period  onward,  his  production,  tales,  stories,  or  serious 
novels,  flowed  steadily  and  uninterruptedly.  Up  to  the 
year  1861,  they  may  be  divided  into  two  principal 
groups,  purely  artistic  creations,  love  stories,  true  or 
invented,  and  somewhat  commonplace,  such  as  The  First 
Love    and    The    Three   Meetings ^    without    much    moral 


282  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

scope,  and  no  common  feature  save  a  groundwork  of 
scepticism  and  ultimate  disenchantment ;  and  works 
with  a  distinct  tendency,  which  bring  forward  various 
varieties  of  the  same  type,  tJie  superfluous  man.  This  per- 
sonage, as  he  appears  in  The  Hamlet  of  the  District  of 
Chtchigiy,  The  Diary  of  a  Superfluous  Man,  The  Corre- 
spondence, Faust  J  Rudin,  Assia,  and  A  House  of  Gentlefolk , 
is  a  man  in  whom  reflection  overrides  voHtion,  and  de- 
stroys the  power  of  action. 

The  heroes  of  these  stories  are  aristocrats,  Hke 
Tourgueniev  himself,  Russian  gentlemerr,  who  have 
completed  their  education  abroad — w^ell-informed,  well- 
mannered,  well-bred  folk,  fit  for  nothing  except  for 
making  love.  And  even  that  must  not  reach  the  point 
of  passion  ;  for  if  it  does,  they  take  flight  at  once,  like 
the  young  man  Assia  met  on  the  banks  of  the  Rhine, 
and  who  may  very  well  have  been  nearly  related  to 
the  novelist  himself.  Rudin  has  more  breadth,  but,  in 
my  opinion,  much  less  real  value.  The  character  of 
the  hero  has  caused  a  great  deal  of  discussion.  His 
first  appearance,  as  the  habitual  guest  of  the  mistress 
of  a  country-house,  whose  daughter  he  seduces,  is  any- 
thing but  glorious ;  and  after  this  failure  in  upright- 
ness, his  courage  fails  him  too,  and  he  flies  before  his 
rival. 

At  this  juncture  we  take  him  to  be  both  vile  and 
cowardly,  and  it  is  with  a  shock  of  surprise  that  we 
learn,  shortly  afterwards,  that  he  possesses  a  superior 
cultivation  of  mind,  and  a  soul  full  of  the  noblest  aspira- 
tions. He  proves  himself  a  thorough  altruist,  to  whom 
nothing  is  lacking  save  a  practical  spirit,  and  he  dies 
like  a  hero  on  the  barricades,  w^hich  he  has  gone  to 
Paris  to  seek,  as  there  are  none  to  be  found  in  Russia. 


i 


TOURGUENIEV  283 

Taking  him  altogether,  he  is  something  very  Hke  the 
deceptive  phrase-maker  whom  Goutzkov  has  reproached 
himself  with  idealising  in  Dankmars  Wildungen^  with  a 
touch,  too,  of  Spielmann's  problematical  figures. 

A  House  of  Gentlefolk  occupies  a  place  of  its  own  in 
Tourgueniev's  work.  In  drawing  the  figure  of  Lavretski, 
the  hero  of  this  book,  the  author  has  entered  a  sphere 
of  positive  conceptions,  to  which,  as  a  rule,  he  remained 
a  stranger.  He  also  proposed  to  supply  an  answer  to 
Tchernichevski's  famous  question — What  is  to  be  done  ? 
Lavretski,  a  man  of  poor  education,  contrives  to  sur- 
mount this  disadvantage  by  the  strength  of  the  national 
temperament.  He  has,  or  the  author  thinks  he  has, 
good  sense,  a  well-balanced  system  of  morality,  a  healthy 
mind,  and  an  upright  heart.  How  then  does  he  contrive 
to  commit  follies  and  produce  the  impression  of  being 
an  oddity  ?  Because  he  cannot  decide  or  act  at  the 
proper  moment.     Still,  and  always,  he  lacks  energy. 

Such  types  as  Lavretski  and  Rudin  are  portraits. 
Did  Tourgueniev  succeed,  as  was  certainly  his  ambition, 
in  reproducing  in  them  the  features  of  the  men  of  his 
own  *  time  ?  I  doubt  it.  As  the  representative  of  the 
"  Forties,"  I  infinitely  prefer  Beltov,  in  Herzen's  novel 
Whose  Fault?  The  form  of  this  w^ork  is  very  inferior 
and  much  too  didactic  ;  but,  historically  speaking,  the 
character  strikes  me  as  being  far  more  true.  It  seems 
to  me  to  sum  up  the  moral  condition  of  the  best  intelli- 
gence of  that  period  in  a  less  imaginary  outline — know- 
ledge, honourable  feeling,  eagerness  to  serve  the  father- 
land, disinterestedness,  a  well-directed  and  even  bold 
intelligence — all  jeopardised,  alas  !  by  an  utter  lack  of 
wise  management,  a  disastrous  predisposition  to  swift 
despondency,  and  a  total  absence  of  the  practical  spirit. 


2  84  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Towards  1860^  Tourgueniev,  like  Ostrovski  and  all  the 
writers  of  their  period,  was  swept  away  by  the  general 
current  that  carried  them  towards  the  study  of  social 
problems.  In  three  successive  novels,  he  made  a  fresh 
attempt  to  respond  to  the  general  call  for  an  ideal. 
The  response  contained  in  On  the  Eve  {Nakmtounie) 
almost  smacks  of  irony.  In  his  search  for  the  man 
who  is  wanted,  after  the  series  of  men  who  were  not, 
Tourgueniev,  imitating  Gontcharov,  w^ho  went  to  Ger- 
many for  his  hero — sought  his  paladm  in  Bulgaria  ! 
And  what  a  poor  prize  he  finds  there  !  Inssarov,  a  col- 
ossus of  strength,  and,  in  the  moral  sense,  as  resolute  as 
a  rock,  must  have  his  cousin  Helen  (feminine  influence 
again  !)  to  help  him  to  reach  his  goal.  And  he  does  not 
reach  it  !     He  is  only  another  Beltov. 

The  second  novel  of  the  series,  Fathers  and  Children^ 
stirred  up  a  storm  the  suddenness  and  violence  of  which 
it  is  not  easy,  nowadays,  to  understand.  The  figure  of 
Bazarov,  the  first  '*  Nihilist " — thus  baptized  by  an  in- 
version of  epithet  which  was  to  win  extraordinary  success 
— is  merely  intended  to  reveal  a  mental  condition  which, 
though  the  fact  had  been  insufficiently  recognised,  had 
already  existed  for  some  years.  The  epithet  itself  had 
been  in  constant  use  since  1829,  when  Nadi^jdine  applied 
it  to  Pouchkine,  Polevoi',  and  some  other  subverters 
of  the  classic  tradition.  Tourgueniev  only  extended  its 
meaning  by  a  new  interpretation,  destined  to  be  per- 
petuated by  the  tremendous  success  of  Fathers  and  Chil- 
dren. There  is  nothing,  or  hardly  anything,  in  Bazarov, 
of  the  terrible  revolutionary  whom  we  have  since  learnt 
to  look  for  under  this  title.  Tourgueniev  was  not  the 
man  to  call  up  such  a  figure.  He  was  far  too  dreamy, 
too  gentle,  too  good-natured  a  being.     Already,  in  the 


TOURGUENIEV  285 

character  of  Roudine,  he  had  failed,  in  the  strangest 
way,  to  catch  the  hkeness  of  Bakounine,  that  fiery  orga- 
niser of  insurrection,  whom  all  Europe  knew,  and  whom 
he  had  selected  as  his  model.  Conceive  Corot  or  Millet 
trying  to  paint  some  figure  out  of  the  Last  Judgment 
after  Michael  Angelo  !  Bazarov  is  the  Nihilist  in  his  first 
phase,  *'  in  course  of  becoming,"  as  the  Germans  would 
say,  and  he  is  a  pupil  of  the  German  universities.  When 
Tourgueniev  shaped  the  character,  he  certainly  drew  on 
his  own  memories  of  his  stay  at  Berlin,  at  a  time  when 
Bruno  Bauer  was  laying  it  down  as  a  dogma  that  no  edu- 
cated man  ought  to  have  opinions  on  any  subject,  and 
when  Max  Stirner  was  convincing  the  young  Hegelians 
that  ideas  were  mere  smoke  and  dust,  seeing  that  the 
only  reality  in  existence  was  the  individual  Ego.  These 
teachings,  eagerly  received  by  the  Russian  youth,  were 
destined  to  produce  a  state  of  moral  decomposition,  the 
earliest  symptoms  of  which  were  admirably  analysed  by 
Tourgueniev. 

Bazarov  is  a  very  clever  man,  but  clever  in  thought, 
and  especially  in  word,  only.  He  scorns  art,  women, 
and  family  life.  He  does  not  know  what  the  point  of 
honour  means.  He  is  a  cynic  in  his  love  affairs,  and 
indifferent  in  his  friendships.  He  has  no  respect  even 
for  paternal  tenderness,  but  he  is  full  of  contradictions, 
even  to  the  extent  of  fighting  a  duel  about  nothing  at 
all,  and  sacrificing  his  life  for  the  first  peasant  he  meets. 
And  in  this  the  resemblance  is  true,  much  more  gene- 
ral, indeed,  than  the  model  selected  would  lead  one  to 
imagine  ;  so  general,  in  fact,  that,  apart  from  the  ques- 
tion of  art,  Tourgueniev — he  has  admitted  it  himself — 
felt  as  if  he  were  drawing  his  own  portrait ;  and  therefore 
it  is,  no  doubt,  that  he  has  made  his  hero  so  sympathetic. 


286  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Nevertheless,  the  picture  has  been  considered  an 
insult  and  a  caricature,  and  has  exposed  its  author  to 
furious  attacks.  It  is  true  that  Katkov,  in  a  letter  which 
was  subsequently  published,  reproached  him  with  having 
set  Bazarov  on  a  pedestal.  And  the  first  person  the 
novelist  met,  on  his  arrival  at  St.  Petersburg,  addressed 
him  with  the  words,  ^^Just  see  what  your  Nihilists  are 
doing  !  They  have  almost  gone  so  far  as  to  burn  the 
town."  He  took  up  the  glove,  somewhat  clumsily,  and 
very  unjustly,  in  Smoke  (1867),  picturing  revolutionary 
dilettanteism  and  society  conservatism,  in  presence  of  each 
other,  in  a  manner  which,  this  time,  really  did  amount 
to  a  caricature.  The  persons  and  ideas  in  both  camps 
are  no  more  than  smoke,  but  it  is  dirty  and  evil-smelling 
smoke.  [  One  enchanting  figure — Irene — perhaps  the 
most  exquisite  bit  of  feminine  psychology  the  author 
has  ever  given  us,  stands  out  luminous  against  the 
gloomy  background  —  to  which,  nevertheless,  she 
clings  with  the  tips  of  her  pink-nailed  fingers, — the 
fingers  of  a  coquette,  selfish  above  all  things,  capable  of 
sacrificing  love  to  mean  calculation,  but  jcapable  also 
of  loving  a  man, — a  coquette  who  does  not  make  her 
sacrifice  without  a  struggle,  and  goes  to  the  very  edge 
of  renunciation  and  of  the  abyss,  and  stirs  our  sym- 
pathy too,  after  all.  Her  character  is  a  master-piece 
of  analysis.  \  Goubarev,  the  dubious  reformer,  and 
Ratmirov,  tire  mysterious  official,  are  neither  true  nor 
sympathetic  representatives  of  the  generation  of  the 
^'  Sixties."  The  period  was  better  than  that.  Before 
mixing  himself  up  in  the  discussions  in  which  he  took 
so  passionate  an  interest,  Tourgueniev  had  been  anxious 
to  return  to  Russia,  and  there  edit  a  paper  in  which  all 
the  problems  connected  with  the  coming  reform  might 


TOURGUENIEV  287 

have  been  ventilated.  He  met  with  suspicion  and 
hostihty  on  the  part  of  the  higher  powers  at  St. 
Petersburg,  remained  abroad,  and  thus  gradually  lost 
clearness  of  vision  as  to  men  and  matters  in  his 
own  country. 

In  his  last  great  novel,  Virgin  Soil  {Nov),  he  once 
more  attempted  to  draw  the  figure  of  the  man  who  was 
wantedy  and  who  would  be  able  to  solve  the  crowning 
problem — that  raised  by  the  apparent  impossibility  of 
maintaining  the  actual  regime,  and  the  equal  impossi- 
bility of  its  immediate  overthrow.  Salomine,  the  factory 
owner — a  strange  type  of  the  opportunist,  revolutionary, 
moderate,  methodical,  abstracted,  a  creature  without 
flesh  and  blood — has  not  been  considered  satisfactory 
in  this  respect.  His  friend  Niejdanov,  Rudin's  own 
brother  in  nolonte,  as  Gambetta  would  have  phrased 
it — seems  to  have  more  reality  and^life.  This  was  because 
Tourgueniev  had  sketched  him  from  Nature.  Niejdanov 
actually  lived  and  breathed.  He  was  one  of  the  author's 
closest  and  most  devoted  friends.  He  is  still  alive.  But 
in  the  novel  he  only  gives  us  the  impression  of  yet 
another  ^'  superfluous  man,"  a  chamber-agitator,  who, 
when  he  undertakes  to  harangue  the  peasants  in  a  tavern, 
falls,  dead  drunk,  at  the  first  all-round  bumper,  and 
kills  himself  afterwards.  Some  of  his  comrades  are 
made  of  tougher  stuff,  but  they  none  of  them  show  us 
that  extreme  tension  of  will  and  energy  of  character 
which  has  been  remarked,  when  the  moment  for  action 
comes,  in  the  real  representatives  of  their  kind.  Two 
charming  feminine  figures,  Machourina,  the  student, 
frightfully  ugly  and  ridiculously  in  love,  and  Marianne, 
graceful  and  coquettish,  endue  the  picture  with  the 
only  artistic  value  it  possesses.     In  one  of  his  unpub- 


2  88  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

lished  letters  to  Ralston,  Tourgueniev  remarks  that  in 
his  time  most  of  the  women  who  enrolled  them- 
selves under  the  Nihilist  banner  were  physically  more 
like  Marianne  than  like  Machourina.  And  he  adds  that, 
notwithstanding  this  fact,  it  was  proved,  in  the  course  of 
the  arrests  made  in  their  party,  that  most  of  them  pre- 
served their  virtue. 

Towards  the  close  of  his  life,  Tourgueniev,  too,  passed 
through  his  mental  crisis.  The  colossus,  healthy  ifiid 
hearty  as  he  appeared,  tottered,  in  his  turn,  on  the  edge 
of  the  giddy  gulf  which  had  swallowed  up  his  elder's 
reason.  The  sudden  breaking  of  his  health  certainly 
contributed  to  this  condition.  He  had  settled  in  Paris 
just  after  the  Franco-German  war,  and  there  he  soon 
felt  the  beginnings  of  a  rare  and  cruel  malady — a  cancer 
of  the  spinal  marrow.  The  constant  expectation  of  death 
threw  him,  from  that  time  forward,  into  a  sort  of  fantastic 
mysticism,  which  steadily  increased.  This  appears  in 
two  stories  written  at  this  period.  The  Song  of  Trium- 
phant Love  and  Clare  Miltitch,  this  last  inspired,  it  is  be- 
lieved, by  the  tragic  death  of  a  famous  Russian  actress. 
They  both  somewhat  recall  Hoffmann's  manner.  If  my 
readers  will  conceive  a  sceptic,  desperately  bent  on  pene- 
trating the  unknown,  they  will  see  Torgueniev  as  he 
was  in  these  last  years.  His  Poems  in  Prose,  which  were 
partly  written  under  the  influence  of  the  same  feelings, 
have  just  been  somewhat  coldly  received  in  Russia.  .Yet 
sometimes  they  give  us  back  the  Tourgueniev  of  his  best 
days,  with  something  beyond,  in  depth  of  thought  and 
intensity  of  feeling,  and  a  language  such  as  no  man, 
before  or  since,  has  spoken  in  Gogol's  country.  Gogol 
is  more  expressive,  more  picturesque,  more  full  of  life. 
Tourgueniev  goes  beyond  life  itself.     These  pages  should 


TOURGUENIEV  2S9 

be  read  by  those  who  desire  to  know  the  heart  of  the 
great  poet  and  infinitely  kind-hearted  man  who  penned 
them. 

Though  some  of  Tourgueniev's  creations,  such  as  his 
Faust,  Mou7itoUy  The  Living  MuTfimyy  are  absolutely  ori- 
ginal, his  work  as  an  artist  is  founded,  as  a  rule,  on  that 
of  the  great  English  novelists  Thackeray  and  Dickens. 
His  humanitarian  and  democratic  leanings  mark  him  the 
pupil  of  George  Sand  and  Victor  Hugo,  and  his  philo- 
sophical views  betray  the  influence  of  Schopenhauer. 
The  Russian  does  not  possess  the  intellectual  solidity 
and  the  virile  strength  of  the  Anglo-Saxon.  His  irre- 
solute soul  is  easily  washed  away  by  every  current.  Like 
Dickens,  Thackeray,  and  the  German  Jean-Paul,  Tour- 
gueniev,  having  begun  with  sketches  and  pictures  of 
.  ordinary  life,  remained  faithful  to  the  genre  style  even  in 
his  larger  compositions.  He  is  superior  to  Dickens  in 
the  matter  of  proportion.  With  the  English  novelist, 
fancy  often  reaches  the  point  of  hallucination.  The 
Russian  novelist  often  declared  that  he  himself  had  no 
imagination  at  all.  Like  most  of  his  fellow-countrymen, 
he  had  the  deepest  feeling  for  Nature.  He  loved  it, 
understood  it,  w^th  the  heart  of  a  hunter,  the  passionate 
affection  of  a  confirmed  rambler  in  field  and  forest. 
Compared  with  Dickens's  descriptive  master-pieces — the 
sea-storm  in  David  Copperfield,  the  land-storm  in  Martin 
Chuzzlewit — Tourgueniev's  descriptions  appear  somewhat 
pale.  But  this  is  atoned  for  by  the  Russian  noveHst's 
special  gift  of  incarnating  the  spirit  of  a  landscape  in 
one  or  two  realistic  though  fantastic  figures,  such  as 
Kassiane  (a  brother,  only  still  more  wild  and  savage,  of 
Patience  in  Mauprat),  who  lives  in  intimate  friendship 
with  the  birds  of  the  forest,   imitates  their  songs,  and 


290  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

knows  how  to  cast  a  spell  over  the  hunter's  fowling-piece, 
so  as  to  save  them  from  being  killed. 

Tourgueniev  also  gives  us  a  fresh  conception  of 
Nature,  which  he  shares  with  Schopenhauer.  Their 
predecessors  had  lived  more  or  less  with  Nature,  but 
had  always  looked  upon  her  as  something  foreign  to 
themselves,  with  an  existence  separate  from  theirs.  In 
Tourgueniev's  case,  this  external  intercourse  becomes  a 
fusion,  a  mutual  pervasion.  He  feels  and  recognises 
portions  of  his  own  being  in  the  wind  that  shakes  the 
trees,  in  the  light  that  beams  on  surrounding  objects, 
and  this  gives  him  a  pang  of  nervous  terror  which  his 
readers  share. 

In  spite  of  Schopenhauer,  perhaps,  after  all,  on 
Schopenhauer's  account,  any  general  philosophic  ten- 
dency in  Tourgueniev's  writings  will  be  sought  in  vain. 
One  might  as  well  expect  to  find  it  in  a  tale  by  Chaucer, 
Boccaccio,  or  Cervantes.  And  this  peculiarity  distin- 
guishes him  from  the  majority  of  the  modern  novelists 
in  every  country,  his  own  included.  He  never  attempts 
to  discover  the  meaning  of  life,  because  he  is  convinced 
that  none  exists.  Though  a  convinced  and  essentially 
realistic  follower  of  Schopenhauer,  both  in  this  feature 
and  also  in  the  fact  that  he  never  touches,  nor  attempts 
to  touch,  on  any  subject  of  which  he  has  not  had  per- 
sonal experience,  he  is  a  far  greater  pessimist  than  his 
German  master,  as  great  a  pessimist  as  Flaubert,  though 
with  this  difference,  that  he  loves  humanity  as  heartily 
as  Flaubert  detests  it.  We  may  take  him  to  be  a  mourner , 
haunted  by  the  sensation  of  the  nothingness  of  existence, 
yet  hungry  for  happiness,  and  enjoying  life  with  all  its 
illusions.  Thus,  in  the  closing  hours,  there  rose  in  his 
soul,  weary  of  suffering  and  yet  terrified  by  the  dark 


TOURGUENIEV  291 

shadow  which  waits  to  swallow  up  our  sufifering,  and  our 
power  of  feeling  with  it,  that  final  death-shudder  so  elo- 
quently expressed  in  certain  pages  of  the  Poems  in  Prose, 

Tourgueniev's  pessimism  is  certainly  not  connected 
with  his  realism,  for  the  greatest  realists,  Goldsmith  in 
the  last  century,  Thackeray,  Balzac,  Zola,  Edmond  de 
Goncourt,  Daudet,  in  this  one,  are  no  pessimists,  nor 
even  Maupassant,  at  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  nor  Gont- 
charov,  Ostrovski,  and  Tolstof,  in  Russia.  The  pessimism 
of  the  author  of  Smoke  does  not  confine  itself  to  one 
particular  idea  of  life.  Its  source  seems  to  lie  simply  in 
the  circumstances  which  have  rooted  him  tip,  made  him 
an  exile.  But  it  has  doubtless  contributed  to  his  view 
of  love  as  a  malady,  an  organic  disorder,  which  obeys  no 
recognised  law,  inexplicable,  incalculable.  Tourgueniev's 
female  lovers  are,  for  the  most  part,  creatures  of  impulse 
and  caprice,  like  Irene  in  Snioke^  and  Princess  Zen-*^ 
aide  in  First  Love,  They  are  enigmatic  figures,  too, 
though  their  creator  acknowledges  that  their  caprices 
are  the  result  of  internal  conflicts,  of  the  meaning  of 
which  they  themselves  are  unaware.  They  are  fond  of 
playing  with  the  feelings  of  others,  because  they  are 
conscious  of  being  themselves  the  playthings  of  their 
own.  In  the  case  of  those  female  characters  who  have 
not  this  capricious  quality — Marie  in  Antchar^  Vera  in 
Fausty  Natalia  in  Rudin^  and  Elizabeth  in  A  House  of 
Gentlefolk — love  comes  to  them  in  a  flash,  like  a  fever,  and 
transforms  these  cold  marble  figures  into  blazing  torches. 

Tourgueniev's  workmanship  is  superior  to  that  of  all 
his  Russian  compeers.  Alone,  or  almost  alone,  among 
them  all,  he  knows  how  to  compose^  to  arrange  his  story 
and  balance  its  different  parts.  In  this  respect,  once  more, 
he  is  essentially  Western.    But,  on  the  other  hand,  and 


292  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

this  is  according  to  the  literary  tradition  of  his  country, 
he  makes  no  attempt  at  finished  style.  Zola  has  told  us, 
in  one  of  his  critical  studies,  how  Flaubert  had  set  him- 
self one  day  to  explain  to  him  why  Merimee's  style  was 
bad,  and  how  the  Russian  novelist,  who  was  present  at 
the  conversation,  found  it  very  difficult  to  understand 
anything  about  the  matter.  His  great  art  lay  in  his 
power  of  evocation,  of  calling  up  clear,  and,  as  it  were; 
familiar  pictures.  He  was  served,  in  this  matter,  by  an 
extremely  well-developed  psychological  instinct,  which 
extracted  the  full  value  of  the  very  simple  methods  he 
employed.  ^'  /  go  to  Oka.  I  find  his  house — that  is  to 
say,  7iot  a  house,  a  hut.  I  set  a  man  in  a  blue  jacket, 
patched,  torn,  with  his  back  turned  to  me,  digging  cabbages. 
I  go  up  to  him  and  say,  ^  Are  you  such  a?i  one?'  He  turns, 
and  I  szvear  to  you  that  in  all  my  life  I  never  saw  such 
piercing  eyes.  Besides  thefn,  a  face  no  bigger  than  a  mans 
fist,  a  goafs  beard,  not  a  tooth.  He  was  a  very  old  man." 
The  portrait  is  there  before  us,  thrust  in  our  faces.  Here 
is  another  of  a  man  ^*  who  looks  as  if  one  day,  long  ago^ 
something  had  astonished  him  intensely,  and  he  had  never 
been  able  to  get  over  tJie  wonder  of  it!'  Then  we  have  the 
President  of  the  Finance  Office,  who  raves  about  Nature, 
'^  especially  when  the  busy  bee  levies  its  little  tribute  on  every 
little  flower  I '^x  Elsewhere  the  method  varies  :  by  means 
of  reticence^,  half-hints,  special  tenses,  pauses,  inflexions, 
introduced  into  his  conversations,  the  artist  builds  up  his 
sketch  just  as  we  have  watched  a  painter  build  up  his 
picture.     For  this,  observe  his  portrait  of  Machourina. 

Tourgueniev,  like  Balzac,  has  a  splendid  eye  for 
detail,  but  he  never  uses  Balzac's  microscope.  And 
he  does  not  pose  his  characters  ;  he  has  no  desire  that 
they   should   form   a   tableau.       A  Lear  of  the  Steppes, 


TOURGUENIEV  293 

the  tragic  story  of  a  small  country  land-owner,  who, 
stripped  and  turned  out  by  his  daughters,  avenges 
himself  by  destroying  the  house  they  have  stolen  from 
him,  is  a  typical  specimen  of  the  mighty  results  of  epic 
dread  obtained  by  the  most  natural  means. 

Tourgueniev,  like  Dostoievski  (though  by  a  more 
laborious  process),  obtains  a  perfectly  natural  expression 
by  means  of  a  sort  of  decomposition  c  f  successive  move- 
ments, which  recalls  the  system  of  the  cinematograph. 
The  recomposition  works  of  itself,  and  without  any 
effort  on  the  reader's  part.  To  explain  Tourgueniev's 
success  in  escaping  the  two  reefs  which  endanger  the 
Realist  school — the  weariness  consequent  on  the  abuse 
of  description,  and  the  disgust  inspired  by  the  medio- 
crity of  the  individuals  represented — M.  Bourget  has  | 
cited  ''the  profound  identity  existing  between  the  out-  I 
look  of  the  Russian  author  and  that  of  his  heroes."  ' 
Dostoievski,  on  the  other  hand,  has  complained  of  this 
feature  in  Tourgueniev's  work,  as  being  false  to  the 
principle  of  realism,  and  leading  up  to  the  construc- 
tion of  artificial  landscapes,  blue  skies  that  smile  on 
scenes  of  love,  and  other  absurdities  of  that  description. 

M.  Bourget  has  further  imagined  a  distinction  be- 
tween ''  the  failures "  {les  rates)  of  the  French,  and  the 
''  superfluous  men  "  of  the  Russian  novel,  the  latter  class 
striking  him  as  less  tiresome,  because  they  are  not  so 
much  men  who  have  failed,  as  men  who  are  not  complete. 
This  shade  appears  to  me  subtle,  and  hardly  correct. 
A  commonplace  individual  is  always  likely  to  prove  un- 
interesting. The  difference  noticed  by  the  French  critic 
arises  entirely,  I  am  disposed  to  think,  out  of  a  question, 
not  of  subject,  but  of  the  manner  in  which  the  subject 
is   presented — in    other   words,    of   talent.      A    Russian 


294  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

critic,  M.  Boborikine,  has  also  justly  observed,  that  such 
men  as  Roudine  and  Lavretski  may  very  well  pass,  in 
the  West,  for  persons  of  average  calibre,  consequently 
commonplace  and  not  particularly  attractive.  But  in 
Russia,  where  social  conditions  are  far  less  highly  devel- 
oped, it  is  quite  a  different  matter,  and  there  they  are 
regarded  as  being  quite  out  of  the  common.  Roudine, 
indeed,  is  not  an  essentially  Russian  type.  There  is 
nothing  specially  national  in  a  predominance  of  thought 
over  volition.  That  trait  is  rather  Western  in  its  origin. 
The  specifically  Russian  form  of  want  of  will,  as  seen  in 
the  case  of  Oblomov,  is  quite  a  different  thing. 

This  leads  me  to  another  inquiry.  Was  Tourgueniev 
a  creator  of  types  in  the  sense  of  that  synthesis  of  cer- 
tain general  and  permanent  features  of  humanity  which 
has  made  the  glory  of  Shakespeare  and  Moliere  ?  The 
question  would  be  settled  at  once,  if,  according  to  the 
[opinion  of  Taine,  registered  by  M.  de  Voglie,  the  author 
/of  Smoke  is  to  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  perfect 
[artists  the  world  has  possessed  since  the  days  of  the 
\  ancient  Greeks  ;  but  I  venture  to  put  forward  some 
V)bjections.  Tourgueniev's  care  for  true  detail,  and  his 
powers  of  evocation,  have  ensured  him  a  high  rank 
among  the  great  artists  and  the  great  realists  of  every 
period.  But  with  these  qualities  he  united  an  equal 
care  and  anxiety  concerning  things  mysterious,  un- 
fathomable, and  fantastic,  and  a  strong  proportion  of 
individuality.  Thus  all  his  creations  contain  a  certain 
amount  of  purely  subjective  reality,  and  a  certain 
/  amount  of  fancy.  His  characters  are  compacted  of  the 
result  of  his  observation,  together  with  all  his  own  inner 
feelings,  his  loves  and  hates,  his  angers  and  disdains. 
Listen  to    Potoughine   in    Smoke^  wearing   himself  out 


TOURGUENIEV  295 

with  passionate  tirades  against  the  Slavophils  !  Tour- 
gueniev  himself  speaks  by  his  mouth.  His  gallery  of 
feminine  portraits  is  exceedingly  rich  and  attractive. 
I  do  not  share  M.  Boborikine's  opinion  that  it  repre- 
sents the  average  of  Russian  women.  I  have  reviewed 
all  the  female  figures  that  attend  upon  Irene.  I  cannot 
find  one  to  be  compared  to  Marguerite  or  Juliet. 

Tourgueniev  is  a  fascinating  artist.  His  chief  charac- 
teristics are  his  tenderness  and  grace,  with  a  certain 
Northern  mistiness  of  colour,  and  an  extreme  daintiness 
of  touch,  which  has  enabled  him  to  approach  the  most 
difficult  subjects  without  any  sign  of  indelicacy.  What 
subject  could  be  more  dangerous  to  handle  than  the 
rivalry  between  the  father  and  the  son  in  First  Love  ? 
In  yl  Sportsman' s  Sketches^  the  novelist's  delicate  touch 
and  his  extreme  intensity  of  restrained  feeling  have 
worked  marvels.  Look  at  the  serf  who  has  not  even 
a  past.  '^  He  was  forgotten  in  the  last  census  of 
'  souls '  ! "  and  that  other,  the  hero  of  MoiunoUy  whose 
only  possession  and  love  in  life  is  a  dog,  which  he  goes 
out  to  drown  at  his  mistress's  command.  And  the  author 
has  barely  sketched  them  in  outline.  Then  read  the 
scene  in  A  Lear  of  the  Steppes,  where  the  peasants  of  a 
village  are  officially  informed  that  their  master  is  to  be  \ 
changed.    The  magistrate,  for  formality's  sake,  inquires —    . 

'^  Have  you  any  objection  to  make  ?  " 

A  dead  silence. 

^'  ComCy  sons  of  the  devil ^  will  you  not  answer?''^ 

At  last  an  old  soldier  ventures  to  come  forward. 

^^  None,  surely  J  your  honour  I " 

And  his  companions,  gazing  at  him  with  admiration, 

not  unmixed  with  terror,  whisper — 

*^  There's  a  bold  fellow  I" 
20 


296'  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Does  not  a  whole  world  of  misery  and  moral  degra- 
dation rise  up  suddenly  before  your  eyes  ?  And  it  is 
done  out  of  nothing,  and  magnificently  done  !  But 
even  this  is  not  the  last  word  spoken  by  art,  either  in 
Russia  or  elsewhere.     Tolstoi"  is  yet  to  come. 

Tourgueniev's  work  has  not  enshrined  the  historic 
moments  and  great  events  of  modern  life,  even  as  it 
has  not  embodied,  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word,  any 
general,  comprehensive,  lasting  type  of  character.  In 
this  connection  I  must  briefly  point  out  the  appointed 
office  of  the  historical  novel  in  his  country.  It  came 
into  existence  after  1830,  under  the  influence  of  West- 
ern Romanticism,  and  more  particularly  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  Its  first  period,  as  exemplified  by  Zagoskine, 
Lajetchnikov,  Koukolnik,  and  Zotov,  was  spent  in  bond- 
age to  this  influence  and  to  that  of  the  historical  school 
of  Karamzine.  At  that  time,  in  novels  as  in  history, 
the  evocation  of  the  past  came  to  a  full  stop  at  the 
impassable  barrier  raised  by  the  epoch  of  Peter  the 
Great.  Lajetchnikov's  The  House  of  Ice^  which  broke 
this  rule  by  encroaching  on  the  jeign  of  the  Empress 
Anne,  was  suppressed  at  its  second  edition.  The  Cen- 
sure even  interfered  with  books  dealing  with  the  earlier 
period,  and  Pouchkine  and  Gogol  were  the  only  writers 
who  produced  really  interesting  work  in  this  closely- 
watched  field.  After  1850,  the  intense  anxieties  of  so 
decisive  a  period  in  the  national  existence  naturally 
turned  men's  minds  from  such  subjects.  Actual  events 
absorbed  every  one.  Yet,  meanwhile,  the  great  labours 
of  Soloviov  and  Kostomarov  were  enlarging  the  circle 
of  historical  reconstruction,  by  the  introduction  of  fresh 
elements,  customs,  traditions,  habits,  beliefs,  sympathies, 
and  antipathies,  connected  with  the  past  life  of  the  nation. 


HISTORICAL  NOVELS  297 

A  little  later  the  masses  of  documents  published  in  and 
after  i860  in  the  Russian  Archives  (i860),  Russian  Anti- 
quities (1870),  Historical  Messenger  (1880),  and  the  Anti- 
quities of  Kiev  (1882),  began  to  form  a  treasure-house 
of  which  art  was  one  day  to  take  possession.  Yet  the 
superiority  of  the  later  historical  novel,  thus  richly 
dowered,  only  made  itself  apparent  in  a  greater  variety 
of  subject,  a  freer  method  of  treatment,  and  a  more  ex- 
tensive knowledge  of  archaeology.  The  observation  of 
past  history  was  just  as  superficial,  and  the  mixture  of 
reality  and  fiction  just  as  incoherent.  Kostomarov  him- 
self set  a  bad,  and  even  the  worst,  example  in  his  Cremu- 
tius  Cordius,  a  play  published  in  1864,  in  which  the  story 
of  Brutus  and  Cassius  was  mixed  up  with  episodes  in  his 
own  career  ;  and  in  a  novel  to  which  I  have  already 
referred,  and  in  which  the  hero,  Koudeiar,  an  imaginary 
and  very  enigmatic  personage,  bears  a  preponderat- 
ing share  in  events  contemporary  with  the  time  of  Ivan 
the  Terrible. 

In  1861,  the  Russian  Messenger  published  a  novel  by 
Prince  Alexander  Tolstoi,  the  action  of  which  passes  in 
the  same  period.  Prince  Serebrianyi  had  a  considerable 
success.  The  character  who  gives  his  name  to  the  book, 
the  champion  of  the  nobility  against  the  tyranny  of  the 
Tsar  and  the  excesses  of  his  Opritchina  (personal  guard), 
has  a  fine  heroic  swing.  The  descriptions,  in  Walter 
Scott's  style,  of  the  sovereign's  hunting-party,  the  camp 
of  his  opponents,  and  the  flight  and  death  of  young 
Skouratov,  a  fugitive  from  the  camp  of  the  OpritcJiinikiy 
lack  neither  life  nor  truth. 

But  the  admirers  of  this  class  of  literature  were 
doomed  to  return,  with  G.  P.  Danilevski  and  his  Miro- 
vitch   (1879)    to    the   sphere    of    whimsical   fancies   and 


298  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

strange  ramblings,  as  exemplified  by  the  impressions  of 
the  unhappy  partisan  of  the  unfortunate  Ivan  VI.,  the 
victim  of  EHzabeth  and  Catherine  II.,  after  his  decapi- 
tation !  It  is  true  that,  as  early  as  1867,  War  and  Peace 
had  appeared  in  the  columns  of  the  Russian  Messenger, 

The  ethnographical  novel,  originally  produced  by 
Koltsov,  Grigorovitch,  and  Tourgueniev,  received  a 
popular  and  fairly  attractive  form  at  the  hands  of  P.  I. 
Midnikov  (1819-1883),  at  one  time  better  known  under 
his  pseudonym  of  A.  Pietcherski.  This  writer  made  his 
first  appearance  in  1839,  when  he  published  some  recol- 
lections of  travel,  w^hich  attracted  great  attention,  in  the 
Annals  of  the  Fatherland,  He  afterwards  taught  history 
and  statistics  at  Nijni-Novgorod,  studied  the  Raskoly  and 
in  1847,  joined  the  staff  of  the  Governor,  Prince  Ouroussov, 
to  whom  he  had  suggested  very  severe  measures  against 
the  dissenters.  After  some  unsuccessful  attempts  at 
psychological  novel-writing,  the  experience  thus  acquired 
helped  him,  somewhat  late  in  life,  between  1875  and 
1883,  to  the  best  of  all  his  literary  performances — two 
really  interesting  studies  in  novel  form,  which  the  Mes- 
senger placed  in  the  hands  of  its  subscribers.  These 
narratives,  entitled  respectively  In  the  Forests  and  In  the 
Mountains^  though  devoid  of  artistic  value  and  psycho- 
logical truth,  though  strongly  tinged  with  fantastic 
notions  and  a  lamentable  taste  for  the  melodramatic, 
and  wTitten  from  an  entirely  official  point  of  view,  are 
nevertheless  full  of  curious  details,  and  are  of  great 
value  as  a  source  of  information. 


CHAPTER    IX 

THE  CONTROVERSIALISTS— HERZEN  AND 
CHTCHEDRINE 

In  this  chapter  I  propose  to  bring  forward  a  group  of 
writers-  in  whose  case  the  artistic  note,  although  of  con- 
siderable importance,  is  not  altogether  dominant.  One 
of  these,  Chtchedrine,  has  in  certain  of  his  creations,  sur- 
passed Tourgueniev  from  the  artistic  point  of  view  ;  yet 
even  in  his  case,  the  artist  has  always  remained  subor- 
dinate to  the  militant  author. 

At  the  period  when  the  adepts  of  German  philosophy 
were  gathering  round  young  Stankievitch  at  Moscow, 
a  second  intellectual  current,  as  theoretical,  though  in 
a  different  direction,  was  rising  within  another  circle  of 
youthful  students.  This  current,  resulting,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Stankievitch  group,  from  local  conditions 
of  existence,  and  external  influences  wherein  the  Euro- 
pean movement  of  the  first  quarter  of  our  century, 
Schiller's  poetry,  and  the  new  Western  literature,  poli- 
tical and  social,  mingled  in  a  confused  and  at  first  un- 
consciously assimilated  mixture  of  directing  impulses, 
gradually  deflected  towards  the  study  of  political  and  soci- 
ological problems.  About  the  year  1840,  the  two  groups 
drew  towards  each  other,  and  well-nigh  fused  together. 
The  Hegelian  right  was  represented  by  Stankievitch 
and   Biehnski  ;    the  left,   by  Herzen    and   Ogariov.     In 


300  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

other  words,  there  was  a  Moderate  and  a  Radical  party. 
Finally  the  two  groups  definitely  separated.  Stankie- 
vitch  and  Bielinski  stirred  up  and  propagated  a  fever 
of  artistic  creation  which  strongly  affected  Gogol  and 
Tourgueniev.  Herzen  and  Ogariov  produced  an  intel- 
lectual ferment  which,  by  the  double  means  of  the  lite- 
rary pamphlet  and  of  political  agitation,  was  to  lead  up 
to  that  effervescence  of  which  the  tragic  incidents  of  the 
conspiracy  of  Petrachevski  and  the  persons  accused  with 
him,  in  1849,  was  to  be  the  first  alarming  symptom. 
Petrachevski,  in  his  Dictionary  of  Foreign  Expressions^ 
forged  an  engine  of  war  which  affected  the  over-excited 
minds  of  his  contemporaries  in  the  same  way  as  the 
Philosophical  Dictionary  had  once  affected  Voltaire's 
readers.  The  so-called  ^^plot"  of  1849,  an  echo  of  the 
February  revolution,  and  the  answer  to  the  philanthropic 
dreams  of  St.  Simon,  Fourier,  and  Proudhon,  called 
forth  terrible  reprisals.  Dostoievski  went  to  Siberia 
with  the  author  of  the  dictionary.  Saltykov  (Chtche- 
drine)  was  sent  to  Viatka,  and  a  series  of  repressive 
measures  helped  to  cast  the  country  back  into  that  con- 
dition of  intellectual  torpor  which  it  had  hardly  shaken 
off.  The  scientific  missions  to  foreign  countries,  the  pil- 
grimages to  German  universities,  were  all  suppressed. 
The  price  of  passports  was  raised  to  the  exorbitant 
figure  of  500  roubles,  and  it  was  only  with  the  greatest 
difficulty  that  they  could  be  obtained  at  all.  The  number 
of  pupils  in  the  Imperial  Universities  was  limited,  and  all 
teaching  of  philosophy  was  forbidden.  The  number  of 
newspapers  was  reduced,  and  the  Censure  became  so 
severe  that  the  word  ^'  liberty  "  was  forbidden,  as  being  re- 
volutionary !  A  man  who  lost  a  dog  called  "  Tyrant "  was 
obliged  to  advertise  for  it  under  the  name  of  ''  Fido." 


HERZEN 


301 


The  idealists  who  had  led  the  movement  were  sobered 
by  its  results.  The  rising  tide  of  reforming  ideas  was 
followed  by  a  violent  reflux  in  the  reactionary  direction. 
The  reformers  of  yesterday  accepted  a  patriotism  "to 
order/'  which  found  its  natural  outlet  in  the  Crimean 
war  (1853 -1856).  But  here  again  disappointment 
was  their  portion.  The  result  of  this  outbreak  of  ultra- 
patriotism  soon  revealed  faults  of  organisation  and 
elements  of  weakness  hitherto  quite  unsuspected.  The 
Slavophil  idealists  saw  their  proud  dream  shattered,  and 
in  its  fall,  official  "nationalism"  was  broken  to  pieces. 
A  renewed  longing  for  self  -  chastisement  seized  on 
this  society,  already  so  bitterly  wounded  in  jts  ten- 
derest  illusions.  A  fresh  outbreak  of  reforming  ideas 
and  humanitarian  impulses  swept  over  the  sovereign 
himself,  and  for  the  first  time, — with  the  inauguration 
of  a  political  era  which  in  itself  constituted  a  revolu- 
tion, government  and  public  opinion  appeared  associ- 
ated in  common  action.  The  press,  too,  recovered  a 
certain  amount  of  liberty.  But  it  had  already  acquired, 
from  foreign  sources,  the  means  of  speaking  out  and 
making  itself  heard.  The  greatest  publicist  of  the  period 
had  for  several  years  been  living  and  writing  in  a  for- 
eign country. 

Herzen. 

The  natural  son  of  a  rich  nobleman  named  lakovlev, 
and  of  a  Stuttgardt  lady  called  Louise  Haag,  Alexander 
IVANOViTCH  Herzen  (1812-1870),  bore  his  fancy  name 
as  a  love-token  (Herzens  Kind\  Child  of  the  Heart). 
Even  quite  lately  this  name  might  not  be  printed  within 
Russian  frontiers.  Exiled,  first  of  all,  to  Viatka,  in  1835, 
and  then  a  second  time  to  Novgorod,  in  1841,  sent  into 


302  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

the  service  of  a  former  rope-dancer,  whom  imperial  favour 
had  transformed  into  the  Governor  of  the  province,  the 
young  man  soon  convinced  himself  of  the  utter  incom- 
patibility of  his  character  with  any  career  in  the  country 
ruled  by  the  Toufiaiev, — thus  was  the  Governor  named. 
One  day,  sitting  in  this  official's  Chancery,  he  heard  a 
poor  serf  woman,  who  besought  the  authorities  not  to 
separate  her  from  her  little  children,  treated  with  rude- 
ness and  contempt.  He  left  the  room  on  plea  of 
illness,  and  never  returned.  He  fell  back  on  literature, 
publishing  first,  in  the  Annals  of  the  Fatherland^  and 
under  the  pseudonym  of  Iskander,  some  Letters  on  the 
Study  of  Nature,  which  attracted  a  great  deal  of  atten- 
tion ;  and  between  1845  and  1846,  two  novels.  Whose 
Fault?  and  Doctor  Kroupov.  The  letters  contain  a  bril- 
liant exposition  of  every  philosophical  system  down  to, 
and  including,  that  of  Bacon,  together  with  a  searching 
criticism  of  these  systems  from  the  point  of  view  of  con- 
temporary knowledge.  The  work  is  interesting,  but 
incomplete.  Herzen's  intention,  no  doubt,  had  been 
to  develop  his  own  cosmic  ideas  on  this  foundation,  but 
other  interests  turned  him  from  the  undertaking.  In 
Whose  Faidt?  we  find,  under  the  name  of  Beltov,  the 
eternal  ^'  superfluous  man,"  very  much  puzzled  whal  to  do 
with  himself,  until  he  meets  with  Liouba,  who,  by  teach- 
ing him  what  love  means,  acquaints  him  with  the  secret 
of  his  destiny,  but  who  is  herself  unfortunately  bound 
to  his  friend  Krouciferski.  The  struggle  of  emotions 
arising  out  of  this  situation  is  intended  to  indicate  that 
the  society  producing  ^is  badly  constituted  and  needs 
a  process  of  reconstruction.  All  the  fault  lies  there.  It 
is  a  work  of  social  physiology  and  pathology,  composed 
with  extreme  skill,  and  holds  a  position  of  capital  impor- 


HERZEN  303 

tance  in  the  history  of  the  intellectual  progress  of  that 
epoch.  That  personal  and  revolutionary  fashion  of  re- 
garding family  and  social  relations,  which  Tolstoi  was  to 
make  peculiarly  his  own,  is  already  clearly  indicated  in 
its  pages.  From  the  aesthetic  point  of  view,  and  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  moral  physiognomy  of  the  little 
world  of  which  it  treats  has  been  searchingly  investi- 
gated by  the  author,  the  work  has  less  value.  The 
figure  of  Liouba,  strongly  marked  out  in  the  style  of 
George  Sand,  is  dry  in  drawing  and  poor  in  colour. 
Herzen  shows  himself  less  the  painter  than  the  sur- 
geon, handling  his  instruments  with  impassive  skill. 
The  book  owed  the  impression  it  made  chiefly  to  the 
picture  drawn  in  its  earlier  pages  of  the  patriarchal  life 
of  ancient  Russia,  in  its  least  honourable  peculiarities, 
thanks  to  which  Liouba,  who  is  a  natural  daughter,  and 
her  mother,  are  both  treated  as  pariahs  in  the  house  of 
Negrov. 

Herzen  was  to  do  better  w^ork  than  this.  At  that 
very  moment  the  death  of  his  father  placed  him  in 
possession  of  a  considerable  fortune,  and  he  left  Russia, 
never  to  return.  In  Paris  he  associated  w4th  French 
socialists  and  Polish  emigrants,  contributed  to  Proud- 
hon's  Voice  of  the  People^  was  banished,  and,  in  1850, 
published — in  German  in  the  first  place,  and  under  the 
title  of  Vom  andern  Ufer — the  first  book  of  his  which 
did  not  pass  under  the  official  censor's  eye.  This  col- 
lection of  epistles  and  dissertations,  composed  under  the 
combined  influence  of  the  revolutionary  notions  of  the 
time,  and  of  the  doctrines  of  the  Slavophil  party,  pro- 
claimed, in  somewhat  audacious  fashion,  the  near  and 
inevitable  end  of  the  political  and  social  organisation 
of  the  old  European,  Christian,  and  feudal  world,  and 


304  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

its  regeneration  by  the  agency  of  the  Russian  Com- 
munity. Nothing  else  so  paradoxical  and  so  brilliant 
occurs  in  the  revolutionary  literature  of  the  period. 

Herzen,  who  had  grown  intimate  with  Charles  Vogt 
and  Herwegh,  was  at  this  time  living  at  Nice.  But  a 
lamentable  catastrophe — the  death  of  his  mother  and 
two  of  his  children,  drowned  between  that  town  and 
Marseilles — was  soon  to  render  this  place  of  residence 
too  painful  for  him.  In  1838  he  had  made  a  love  mar- 
riage, preceded  by  an  elopement.  Paris  being  closed 
to  him,  he  decided  to  go  to  London,  but  he  found 
himself  as  isolated  there,  at  first,  as  he  had  been  in 
Russia.  The  Revolutionists  of  other  countries  could  not 
swallow  his  Slavophilism.  He  endeavoured  to  justify 
it  by  the  publication  of  a  second  book.  On  the  Develop- 
ment of  Revolutionary  Ideas  in  Russia  (1853),  ^^^  ^^ 
only  succeeded  in  gaining  the  sympathy  of  the  Polish 
democratic  party,  and  of  its  London  chief,  Worcell. 
A  printer  belonging  to  the  Polish  printing-press  in 
London,  Czerniegki,  helped  him  to  found  a  Russian 
printing-press.  But  just  at  this  time  the  Crimean  war, 
with  its  proofs  of  the  superiority  of  ancient  Europe, 
began  to  shake  the  over-presumptuous  convictions  of 
the  banished  Slavophil,  and  counselled  him  to  leave 
the  ^^ rotten"  West  to  its  fate,  and  to  turn  all  his  atten- 
tion to  questions  affecting  the  internal  economy  of 
Russia.  To  this  decision  his  Polish  intimacies  contri- 
buted, and  the  death  of  Nicholas  in  1855,  together  with 
the  political  confusion  resulting  from  it,  combined  to 
tempt  him  still  further  in  this  direction.  Thus  the 
publication  of  The  Polar  Star  was  decided  on.  With 
the  first  numbers  of  this  periodical,  wherein  Herzen 
placed   the   emancipation  of   the   serfs   at  the  head  of 


HERZEN  305 

the  reforms  he  claimed,  there  appeared,  in  English,  the 
author's  own  Memoirs  {My  Exile,  1856),  which  pro- 
duced a  great  sensation.  In  1857,  The  Polar  Star^ 
which  was  only  published  once  in  six  months,  became 
insufficient  for  its  purposes,  and  on  the  ist  of  July 
in  that  year.  The  Belly  which  was  destined  to  meet 
with  such  prodigious  success,  made  its  first  weekly  ap- 
pearance. Five  months  later,  on  December  2,  1857, 
Alexander  II.  published  his  famous  rescript,  calling  on 
the  nobility  to  bring  forward  plans  for  the  work  of 
emancipation  ;  and  from  that  moment,  The  Bell  took  on, 
for  some  time,  the  appearance  of  an  informally  official 
organ,  which  supported  the  Government  against  the  re- 
sistance offered  to  the  projected  reform  by  a  certain 
section  of  the  aristocracy.  The  paper,  though  officially 
forbidden,  circulated  all  over  the  empire.  Copies  of  it 
appeared  even  on  the  table  of  General  Rostovtsov,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Commission  charged  with  the  preparation  of 
the  act  of  enfranchisement.  When,  now  and  then,  the 
police  thought  itself  obliged  in  decency  to  interfere,  it 
would  confiscate — as  on  one  occasion  at  the  fair  of 
Nijni-Novgorod — a  hundred  thousand  copies  at  once. 
Herzen,  meanwhile,  contrived  to  obtain  the  most  trust- 
worthy, the  most  precise,  and  the  earliest  information  as 
to  the  affairs  of  the  country.  He  would  hold  forth  to  his 
readers  concerning  state  secrets  which  were  not  known 
to  more  than  ten  persons  in  the  whole  of  Russia.  He 
gave  the  names  of  prisoners  shut  up  in  the  dungeons  of 
St.  Petersburg  and  the  mines  of  Nertchinsk,  whom  their 
very  jailers  knew  only  by  their  allotted  numbers. 

When  the  emancipation  became  an  accomplished 
fact,  the  3rd  of  March  1861  was  kept  as  a  festival  in 
Herzen's  house  in  the  west  end  of  London.     Over  the 


3o6  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

entrance  two  great  flags  waved,  with  these  inscriptions, 
*^  Freedom  of  the  Russian  Peasants/'  ''  The  Free  Russian 
Press."  Herzen  Httle  dreamt  that  he  was  celebrating 
the  early  downfall  of  The  Bell,  From  this  date  the 
prestige  of  the  newspaper  rapidly  declined.  Herzen,  very 
unadvisedly,  sided  with  the  peasant  revolts  which  followed 
closely  on  the  reform,  and  imperilled  the  benefits  thereby 
obtained.  At  the  same  time,  influenced  by  Bakounine, 
he  entered  on  a  course  of  excessive  revolutionism,  which 
was  soon  to  cost  him  the  great  majority  of  his  readers. 

Michael  Bakounine(i8i4-i876)had  then  just  escaped 
from  Siberia  by  way  of  America.  He  was  a  revolutionary 
of  the  type  of  Barbes,  and  loved  his  vocation  with  an 
artist's  love.  ^'The  passion  for  destruction,"  so  he 
averred,  ^'  is  a  creative  passion."  He  had  been  an 
Hegelian  of  the  right  and  of  the  left ;  he  passed  over 
into  Germany  towards  1841,  found  it  too  full  of 
theorists  to  please  him,  moved  on  to  Paris,  joined  the 
Polish  emigrants,  was  expelled  by  Guizot,  and  did  hot 
return  to  the  capital  until  the  February  revolution  re- 
opened its  gates  to  him.  Caussidiere  used  to  say  of  him, 
"The  first  day  of  a  revolution  he  is  a  treasure  ;  the  next 
day  he  had  better  be  shot."  The  authorities  were  con- 
tent with  turning  him  out.  He  betook  himself  to  Prague, 
where  he  preached  socialist  Panslavism,  fought  with  the 
rioters  against  the  soldiers  of  Windischgratz,  slipped 
through  the  fingers  of  the  Austrian  police,  and  hurried 
off  to  take  his  part  in  the  Dresden  revolution.  Saxony 
made  him  over  to  Austria,  who  abandoned  him  to  Russia. 
He  was  sent  to  the  mines,  escaped,  as  I  have  said,  and 
reached  London  in  time  to  revolutionise  Herzen's  rela- 
tively moderate  propaganda,  and  crack  his  Bell.  At  a 
later  period  his  violence  was  to  alarm  Karl  Marx  himself, 


HERZEN  307 

and  the  workers  of  the  International.  After  1873  he  was 
forsaken  by  every  one,  and  returned  to  private  Hfe. 
Amongst  his  numerous  publications,  pamphlets,  and 
books,  the  tract  entitled  To  my  Russian  aftd  Polish 
Friends  (in  French,  Leipzig,  1862),  and  a  study,  pub- 
lished in  German,  under  the  title  Historische  Entwickelung 
der  Internationale  (Geneva,  1874),  are  the  only  two  worthy 
of  mention. 

In  the  company  of  this  dangerous  acolyte,  Herzen 
gradually  lost  all  moderation  and  all  political  wisdom. 
He  attacked  the  person  of  the  Emperor,  which  he 
had  hitherto  always  respected.  "  Farewell,  Alexander 
Nicolaievitch,  good  journey  to  you!"  I  have  already 
related  how  he  succeeded  in  provoking  Katkov's  vehe- 
ment protests.  The  Belly  deserted  by  its  readers,  and 
removed  to  Geneva  in  1865,  degenerated,  little  by  little, 
into  an  obscure  pamphlet,  which  altogether  disappeared 
four  years  later  ;  and  in  the  year  after  that,  Herzen,  too, 
died  in  Paris, 

His  was  one  of  the  most  remarkable  intellectual  orga- 
nisations of  any  country  and  any  period.  He  could 
write  correctly,  and  occasionally  brilliantly,  in  Russian, 
French,  English,  and  German.  To  the  ten  volumes  of 
his  works  published  in  Russian  at  Geneva  between  1875 
and  1879,  an  enormous  quantity  of  pamphlets  must  be 
added.  In  one  of  these,  France  and  England^  published 
in  1858,  he  discusses  the  problem  of  a  Franco-Russian 
alliance.  His  own  preference  was  for  England, — the 
only  school,  he  said,  which  suited  Russia — ^^A  country 
without  centralisation,  without  a  bureaucracy,  without 
prefectures,  without  gendarmes,  without  revolution,  and 
without  reaction."  In  1865,  under  the  title  of  Camiccia 
Rossa,  he  relates  a  curious  episode  of  his  residence  in 


308  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

London, — his  meeting  with  Garibaldi.  He  also  touched 
on  history,  by  his  publication  of  the  Memoirs  of  Cathe- 
rine II.  and  of  the  Princess  Dachkov  (1859).  In  London 
he  kept  open  house.  Of  affable  manners  and  a  brilliant 
talker,  though  by  no  means  an  orator,  he  attracted  uni- 
versal liking. 

His  character  and  his  intellectual  powers  have  been 
the  subject  of  very  contradictory  judgments.  His  com- 
patriots have  taken  him,  at  one  time  and  another,  to  be 
either  Hamlet  or  Don  Quixote, — an  idealist  or  a  realist. 
I  am  disposed  to  share  the  opinion  of  Vietrinski  {His- 
torical and  Literary  Sketches y  Moscow,  1899).  Herzen 
was,  above  all  things,  an  exceedingly  personal  writer, 
very  impressionable,  and  very  apt  to  change  his  impres- 
sions. One  only  has  been  durable  and  dominant  with 
him, — a  deep  love  of  his  country,  of  his  country's  spirit, 
of  its  manner  of  existence  and  its  methods  of  thought, 
joined  with  a  profound  feeling  of  sadness,  the  reason 
for  which  will  be  easily  guessed. 

The  Russian  printing-press  which  he  founded  in 
London  continued  to  work  even  after  his  departure 
and  his  death.  From  it  issued,  between  i860  and  1870, 
General  Fadieiev's  Letters  on  Russian  Society  and  the 
Russian  Army,  Kaveline's  book  The  Nobility  and  the 
Emancipation  of  the  Serf,  lelaguine's  The  Russian  Clergy y 
Kochelev's  How  can  Russia  Escape  from  her  Present  Posi- 
tion ?  Samarine's  The  Baltic  ProvinceSy  theological  studies 
by  Gagarine  and  Khomiakov,  various  collections  of  his- 
torical and  biographical  papers,  and  a  number  of  revo- 
lutionary newspapers  and  pamphlets,  of  a  democratic 
and  social  tendency. 

The  literary  tradition  of  Herzen,  combined,  however, 
with  a  marked  leaning  towards  the  school  of  Bakounine, 


CHTCHEDRINE  309 

is  carried  on,  in  our  day,  by  Lavrov,  who  edited  the 
Anarchist  and  revolutionary  newspaper  Forward  from 
1870  to  1880  ;  by  Vera  ZassouHtch,  and  by  Prince  Krapot- 
kine,  to  whom  the  Nineteenth  Centmy  has  had  the 
courage  to  entrust  the  duties  of  scientific  reviewer,  in 
succession  to  the  illustrious  Huxley,  The  Socialism  of 
Little  Russia  has  found  what  I  may  call  a  kind  of  auto- 
nomous representative  in  the  person  of  M.  Dragomanovo, 
who  died  quite  recently. 

It  should  be  noted  that  the  great  Russian  writers  of 
the  middle  of  the  present  century,  Tourgueniev,  Gont- 
charov,  Dostoievski,  and  even  Tolstoi  himself,  have  really 
exercised  a  very  restricted  influence  on  the  intellectual 
and  social  evolution  of  the  years  between  i860  and  1880. 
They  were  widely  read,  and  even  enthusiastically  ad- 
mired, but  the  public,  for  the  most  part,  drew  its  ideas 
and  sentiments  from  a  number  of  writers  such  as  Pomia- 
lovski,  Slieptsov,  Mikhailov  (pseudonym  Scheller),  Mad- 
ame Khvochtchinskaia  (pseudonym  V.  Krestovski),  who 
did  not  even  occupy  the  front  rank  among  the  secondary 
novelists,  and  especially  from  the  leaders  of  the  litera- 
ture of  divulgation  and  accusation,  romantic  followers 
of  Herzen,  and,  like  him  the  confessors  and  merciless 
chastisers  of  a  society  which  was  tasting  its  hour  of  re- 
pentance and  expiation.  The  most  eminent  represen- 
tatives of  this  group  are  Saltykov  (Chtchedrine)  and 
Pissemski. 

Michael  Ievgrafovitch  Saltykov  (Chtch£drine) 
(1826-1889)  ni^de  his  first  appearance  in  literature  simul- 
taneously with  Dostoievski,  and  somewhat  later  than 
Nekrassov.  In  1841,  he  published  some  verses  in  the 
Reader  s  Library y  and  in  1847,  under  the  pseudonym  of 
Nepanov,    a    novel,    imitated    from    George    Sand,    and 


3IO  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

entitled  Contradictions^  in  which  the  power  of  satire  he 
was  afterwards  to  evince  is  by  no  means  foreshadowed. 
His  wit  and  spirit  were  not  to  develop  in  this  direction 
until  a  later  period,  under  the  influence  of  Socialist  ideas, 
and  probably,  also,  of  the  prolonged  exile  he  had  to 
suffer.  His  novel,  though  considered  harmless  in  1847, 
was  looked  on  as  criminal  in  1848,  and  the  author 
was  whirled  away  in  a  kibitka.  He  owed  his  liberty, 
some  eight  years  later,  to  the  sort  of  liberal  reaction 
consequent  on  the  disasters  of  the  Crimean  war.  Then 
appeared,  in  the  Russian  Messenger^  his  Sketches  of 
Governments,  which  seem  to  be  a  continuation  of 
Gogol's  Dead  Souls,  with  less  humour  and  more  bitter- 
ness— a  cruel  wit,  that  whistled  and  bit  like  the  thong 
of  a  whip.  The  blows  fell  from  above.  The  chastiser, 
who  already  belonged  to  one  of  the  noblest  families  in 
the  country,  was  now  advanced  to  official  dignity,  first  as 
Governor  of  Riazan  and  afterwards  as  Governor  of  Tver. 
The  administrative  career,  it  must  be  admitted,  did 
not  retain  him  for  long.  It  suited  him  ill,  and  he  suited 
it  still  worse.  In  1868  it  came  to  an  end,  and  Saltykov, 
the  official,  disappeared  for  ever  behind  Chtchedrine, 
the  contributor  to  the  Contemporary,  and,  after  the  sup- 
pression of  that  publication,  the  editor,  with  Nekrassov, 
of  the  Annals  of  the  Fatherland,  which,  in  1884,  ceased  in 
their  turn  to  appear.  It  is  at  this  moment  that  his 
literary  personality  took  definite  shape.  He  became, 
and  to  the  last  stroke  of  his  pen  he  was  to  remain,  the 
executioner  of  the  press  and  society  of  his  time,  who 
summoned  every  category,  every  shade  of  opinion,  and 
every  section  of  society  (including  his  own)  into  the 
question  chamber,  where  each  culprit  was  duly  casti- 
gated, or  branded  with  hot  irons. 


CHTCHEDRINE  311 

In  Chtchedrine's  Sketches ^  the  first  group  to  pass 
under  the  whip  was  the  provincial  bureaucracy,  cujus 
magna  pars  fuit.  Note  the  historical  incident  of  the 
Bomnaga  (business  document)  which  the  tchinovniks  of 
the  town  of  Kroutogorsk  pass  from  hand  to  hand 
without  contriving  to  understand  a  word  of  it.  At  last 
an  archivist  whom  they  call  into  consultation  offers  to 
help  them  out  of  the  difficulty. 

^^  You  understand  it  ?  " 

^'  No  ;  but  I  can  answer  it !  " 

Peasants  and  merchants,  upper  and  lower  classes, 
judicial  and  religious  customs,  all  have  their  turn.  Listen 
to  the  confession  of  the  examining  magistrate.  ^'  What 
right  have  I  to  a  conviction  ?  On  whose  account  is  it 
necessary  that  I  should  have  one  ?  On  one  solitary  occa- 
siony  when  speaking  to  the  President^  I  ventured  to  sayy 
^ as  I  understand  it.'  .  .  .  He  looked  at  me^  and  I  never 
did  it  again.  Why  should  I  zvant  to  know  whether  a 
crime  has  really  been  committed  or  not  ?  Is  the  crime 
proved?  that  is  the  whole  question^  Beside  this  realist 
magistrate  we  find  another  whose  sympathy  is  with  the 
culprits,  and  who  would  fain  believe  them  innocent. 
His  fancy  brings  him  no  luck.  *'  Why  don  t  you  thrash 
me  ?  "  cries  one  of  the  rogues  whom  he  is  gently  ques- 
tioning. ^^  Do  thrash  me !  then  perhaps  I  will  tell  you 
something!*  Thus,  from  the  top  of  the  ladder  to  the 
bottom,  he  sets  forth  the  same,  or  almost  the  same,  signs 
of  the  perversion  and  degradation  of  the  moral  sense ; 
a  general  lack  of  character,  corruption  and  falsehood, 
reproduced  in  various  forms  and  on  every  level ;  insolent 
tyranny  above,  crawling  slavery  below.  Everywhere  a 
life  of  mechanical  formalism,  with  a  thin  varnish  of 
civilisation  to  cover  all  its  horrors.     Saltykov's  perma- 


312  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

nent  idea  would  seem  to  be  that,  at  bottom,  nothing  has 
changed  in  Russia  since  the  eighteenth  century.  De- 
moralisation, ignorance,  and  barbarism  have  all  remained 
stationary,  and  even  the  liberal  measures  of  i860  have 
only  served  to  induce  fresh  phenomena  of  moral  cor- 
ruption. 

His  usual  method,  in  these  sketches,  is  one  of  cold 
and  unsmiling  irony.  Look  at  his  inimitable  picture 
of  that  idyllic  and  patriarchal  existence  which  consti- 
tutes the  delight  of  the  inhabitants  of  Kroutogorsk. 
^^ Heavenly  powers!  what  a  paradise  it  would  be  if  it 
were  not  for  the  police-officers  and  the  fleas !"  In  his 
subsequent  works,  the  author  broadens  his  manner  and 
extends  his  field  of  observation.  After  the  Crimean  war 
he  falls  foul  of  the  kind  of  intellectual  and  moral  renais- 
sance evoked  by  that  fiasco  of  official  patriotism.  He 
denounces  its  empty  phraseology,  and,  progressive  as  he 
is  himself,  he  makes  game  of  its  cloudy  ideas  of  progress, 
mistily  floating  hither  and  thither.  Between  1861  and 
1867  he  reviews  the  transition  types  created  by  the  great 
reform.  Landowners  who  do  not  know  what  to  make 
of  their  new  position  ;  brandy  merchants,  railway  con- 
tractors, and  money-lenders,  who  turn  the  situation  to 
account,  and  are  the  only  ones  to  benefit  by  the  act  of 
emancipation  ;  a  ruling  class  terrified  by  the  conse- 
quences of  its  own  act,  a  literary  class  whose  judgment 
of  that  act  varies  from  one  day  to  another.  Russia,  with 
her  new  representatives  of  the  ruling  classes — ''the  men 
of  culture" — which  she  now  possesses,  is  like  a  vessel 
which  has  been  cleaned  without,  but  which  is  full  of 
filth  within.  Such  is  the  meaning  of  the  Story  of  a 
Town^  of  the  Faces  of  our  Tijues,  and  of  the  foumal  of 
a  Country  Gentleman,      Listen  to  the  complaint  of  the 


CHTCHEDRINE 


313 


Pamiechtchik  (rural  land-owner)  who  has  to  pay  for  his 
place  in  the  St.  Petersburg  theatre  to  hear  Schneider 
sing.  The  lady,  pretty  as  she  is,  is  not  so  fair  as  a 
Palachka  of  the  good  old  times.  What  pleasure  can  he 
have  in  looking  at  her  and  listening  to  her  ?  He  cannot 
say  to  himself,  ^^  She  belongs  to  rtie  ;  I  can  do  what  I  will 
with  her^  to-morrow  or  at  once.  If  I  like  I  can  have  her 
hair  cut  off ;  or  if  I  choose  I  can  marry  her  to  Antipy  my 
shepherd f  .  .  .  Alack  !  we  can  do  no  harm  to  anybody  now 
— 71  ot  even  to  a  hen  !  " 

Between  1867  and  t88i,  we  have  a  new  series  of 
Sketches^  in  which  the  prevailing  type  is  that  of  the 
Gentlemen  of  Tachkent,  "men  of  culture"  of  a  special 
kind,  "champions  of  education  without  the  alphabet," 
and  seekers  after  fortune  for  which  they  will  not  have 
to  work.  At  this  period  the  town  and  neighbourhood 
of  Tachkent  had  become  a  sort  of  Klondyke.  These 
volumes  are  full  of  obscure  allusions  to  contemporary 
events,  which,  together  with  frequent  and  tedious  diva- 
gations, make  them  difficult  and  fatiguing  to  read,  and 
indeed  the  author's  wit  occasionally  strikes  one  as  being 
somewhat  forced.  An  exception  must  be  made  in  the 
case  of  The  Golovlev  Brothers,  which  belongs  to  this 
series.  This  book  is  Chtchedrine's  masterpiece.  In  it 
he  rises  to  a  height  of  tragic  power  which  is  almost 
Shakespearian.  But  at  what  a  cost !  The  story  of  the 
Golovlev  family  is  the  most  terrible  accusation  which 
has  ever  been  formulated  against  any  society.  The 
author  of  La  Terre  and  his  French  imitators  have  never 
ventured  on  anything  like  it.  Chtchedrine  has  deter- 
mined, on  this  occasion,  to  show  the  remnants  of  the 
old  order,  of  the  patriarchal  form  of  life,  and  the  special 
culture  appertaining  to  it,  as  perpetuated,  after  the  reform, 


314  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

in  the  bosom  of  a  family  of  Pamiechtchiki,  We  see  three 
brothers,  left  practically  to  themselves  by  an  idiot  father, 
and  a  mother  whose  sole  idea  is  to  increase  the  common 
patrimony.  Once  they  are  full  grown,  they  are  cast 
upon  life,  with  but  a  scanty  provision,  and  left  to  take 
their  chance.  If  they  fail,  they  will  have  food  and 
lodging  at  the  farm.  The  eldest,  in  despair,  takes  to 
drink  and  dies  of  it.  The  second  follows  his  father,  and 
falls  into  a  condition  of  semi-madness.  The  third  is  the 
favourite  son.  His  brothers  call  him  ''Little  Judas" 
(loudouchka)  and  ''  Blood-sucker."  He  skilfully  per- 
suades his  mother  to  divide  the  fortune  she  has  amassed, 
obtains  an  undue  portion  in  the  first  place,  and  finally 
succeeds  in  securing  the  whole.  He  has  two  sons,  who, 
in  their  turn,  have  to  make  their  way  in  the  world  as 
best  they  can.  One  of  them  desires  to  make  a  love 
marriage.  ''  As  you  will,"  says  the  father.  But  as  soon 
as  the  couple  are  united,  he  cuts  off  their  means  of  sub- 
sistence. Another  suicide  !  The  second  son,  an  officer 
in  the  army,  comes  home  one  night,  pale  and  hag- 
gard. He  has  gambled  aw^ay  money  belonging  to  his 
regiment.  "  That's  unfortunate y*  observes  loudouchka 
calmly.     ''  Let  us  go  and  have  some  tea!' 

"  But  what  am  I  to  do?** 

^'  Thafs  your  business.  I  cannot  know  what  resources 
you  reckoned  on  when  you  began  to  play.  Let  us  go  and 
have  some  tea." 

"  But  three  thousand  roubles  are  nothing  to  you  !  You 
are  a  millionaire  thrice  told." 

"  That  may  be,  but  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  your  prank. 
Let  us  go  and  have  some  tea!' 

And  the  unhappy  wretch,  cashiered  and  sent  to  hard 
labour,  dies  in  a  convict  hospital. 


CHTCH]£dRINE  315 

loudouchka  has  a  mistress,  the  daughter  of  a  Greek 
priest,  whom  he  has  employed,  in  the  first  place,  as  his 
housekeeper.  He  is  warned  that  she  is  about  to  become 
a  mother,  and  is  very  ill  pleased  at  being  interrupted  in 
the  middle  of  his  prayers,  for  he  is  exceedingly  devout. 

"  But  what  is  to  beco7ne  of  the  child  ?  " 

'' What  child?'' 

"  Your  child.     Eupraxia  will  soon  be  a  mother^ 

"-/  dont  knoWy  and  I  don^t  desire  to  know.'' 

And  the  child  is  sent  to  a  workhouse. 

loudouchka  has  two  nieces,  who,  finding  they  must 
starve  at  home,  become  provincial  actresses.  The  eldest 
soon  turns  sick  at  heart,  poisons  herself,  and  tries  to 
induce  her  sister  to  do  likewise. 

^^  Drink  !  coward  that  you  are  !  " 

But  the  wretched  girl's  courage  fails  her,  and  when 
all  other  resources  are  exhausted,  she  takes  refuge  with 
her  uncle.  loudouchka  brutally  suggests  that  she  should 
occupy  Eupraxia's  place.  She  turns  from  him  in  horror, 
and  takes  to  flight.  When  she  returns  at  last,  she  has 
lost  all  her  charm,  her  health  is  broken,  and  she  has  taken 
to  drink.  One  night,  loudouchka  surprises  her  alone  with 
Eupraxia,  drinking  glasses  of  brandy,  and  singing  filthy 
songs.  He  takes  her  away  with  him,  and  becomes  the 
companion  of  her  nightly  orgies.  These  two  sit  drinking 
in  his  silent  house,  till  they  fall  to  quarrelling,  and  cast 
horrible  insults  in  each  other's  teeth.  In  the  fumes  of  the 
brandy,  their  past  surges  up  before  their  eyes,  full  of 
abominable  memories,  of  shameful  deeds  and  crimes,  of 
nameless  suffering  and  humiliation,  till,  little  by  little,  a 
sort  of  half-conscience  rises  up  in  the  haunted  soul  of 
the  *'  Blood-sucker,"  and  he  feels  all  the  horror  of  the 
responsibility  he  has  incurred.     It  is  terribly  magnificent. 


3i6  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

loudouchka,  as  I  have  already  said,  is  a  devotee.  All 
through  the  long  lonely  days,  he  never  leaves  his  writing 
table,  and  the  laborious  reckoning  up  of  his  income  and 
his  gains,  save  to  kneel,  for  long  periods,  before  the  holy 
pictures.  Chtchedrine  has  desired  to  realise  a  sort  of 
Tartuffe  of  his  own,  partly  duped  by  his  own  hypocrisy, 
who  believes  in  God,  but  is  incapable  of  connecting  his 
faith  with  any  moral  principle.  The  wild  nights  spent 
with  the  niece  whom  he  has  cast  into  such  a  horrible 
abyss,  the  reproaches  with  which  she  overwhelms  him, 
and  the  remorse  with  which  she  finally  inspires  him,  end 
by  leading  him  first  to  the  haunting  idea  of  a  necessary 
expiation,  and  then  to  an  intense  longing  for  it.  And  so 
one  winter  morning,  after  many  prayers  before  a  thorn- 
crowned  Christ,  loudouchka  goes  out  and  kills  himself 
upon  his  mother's  grave. 

Such  a  picture  only  admits  of  one  plausible  explana- 
tion. We  see  the  end  of  the  whole  social  group  it  is 
supposed  to  represent — death  without  any  possible  re- 
turn to  life.  The  worms  are  crawling  over  it  already — 
decomposition,  and  nothingness  beyond  it.  The  idea  is 
false — at  all  events  it  is  exaggerated.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  country  land-owners  of  the  period  were  no  more  than 
a  special  category  of  '^  superfluous  men,"  and  this  Chtched- 
rine himself  has  understood,  and  admirably  demonstrated, 
in  The  Spleen  {Dvorianskata  Khandra),  in  which  he  depicts 
the  anguish  of  a  Pamiechtchik  who  suddenly  finds  himself 
Useless,  and  buried  alive,  as  it  were,  in  his  country  home. 
He  has  lost  the  right  to  need  his  peasants,  and  his 
peasants  have  ceased  to  need  him.  He  feels  himself  to 
be  despairingly  useless.  But  this  is  all.  And  this  in 
itself  is  evidently  a  passing  matter.  The  portrait  of 
loudouchka,   and    the    personality   of    the    figures   sur- 


CHTCHEDRINE  317 

rounding  him,  present  features  of  profound  observation, 
and  give  proof  of  remarkable  dramatic  power.  But  the 
author  reveals  himself  as  a  poet  rather  than  a  sociologist 
— the  poet  of  caricature. 

Yet  he  never  was  a  novelist  in  the  proper  meaning  of 
the  word.  He  even  goes  so  far,  in  the  preface  of  his 
Tachkentsy,  as  to  condemn  this  literary  form,  as  being 
too  limited,  and  no  longer  fulfilling  the  needs  of  the 
period.  And  his  stories,  as  a  rule,  contain  no  element  of 
romantic  interest  whatever.  They  are  rather  analytical 
essays,  and  essays  of  social  criticism,  tainted  by  a  con- 
siderable amount  of  fancy,  and  an  equal  amount  of 
deliberate  exaggeration.  Yet  this  does  not  lead  me  so 
far  as  to  adopt  Pissarev's  opinion  of  his  work,  as  being 
nothing  but  *^  laughing  for  laughing's  sake." 

After  1880,  the  prolific  writer  modified  his  manner 
once  again.  A  calm  had  fallen  on  the  intellectual  and 
political  turmoil  of  the  preceding  years.  There  were  no 
more  mighty  movements,  no  more  bitter  conflicts.  And 
when  Chtchedrine  composed  his  Trifles  of  Life  ^  he  seemed 
to  harmonise  his  note  to  the  general  tone.  He  set  him- 
self to  show  the  part  played  in  life  by  those  small  details 
which  absorb  and  eat  it  up.  And  after  that,  passing 
from  analysis  to  synthesis,  he  considered,  in  his  TaleSy 
the  general  elements  common  to  the  existence  of  every 
nation,  and  every  period.  In  spite  of  some  too  evident 
contradictions,  this  part  of  his  work  may  be  said  to  have 
placed  him  on  an  equality  with  the  greatest  of  European 
writers.  The  general  tone  is  that  of  a  deep-seated  scep- 
ticism and  pessimism,  a  lack  of  faith  in  humanity,  and 
an  idea  that  the  struggle  for  life  is  the  supreme  law  of 
existence.  This  certainly  seems  to  be  the  meaning,  for 
instance,  of  the  Poor   JVo/f  whom  the  author  shows  us 


3i8  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

as  being  driven  to  steal  and  kill  in  order  to  live.  Yet^  in 
the  Christmas  Tales,  with  their  deep  pathos  and  profound 
religious  feeling,  the  author  strikes  a  very  different  note 
— that  faith  in  the  Divine  Love  which  lifts  humanity  out 
of  all  its  misery. 

Towards  the  end  of  his  life,  Chtchedrine  has  seemed 
to  desire  to  atone  for  former  contradictions  and  errors  of 
judgment  by  writing  The  Chronicle  of  PocJiekhonie — the 
Russian  Abdera.  This,  again,  is  a  picture  of  the  life  of 
rural  proprietors  before  the  reform,  and  this  time  we 
have  a  history  wherein  traits  of  true  humanity  and  Chris- 
tian love  atone  for  very  occasional  failures,  and  a  few 
absurdities.  Both  as  regards  its  depth  of  thought  and 
its  artistic  form,  if  not  for  its  absolute  reliability,  the 
work  is  far  superior  to  Akssakov's  Family  Chronicle. 

The  melancholy  shade  of  Pissemski,  and  his  numerous 
admirers,  will  perhaps  reproach  me  with  having  here 
allotted  him  a  position  all  unworthy  of  him.  And  I  must 
admit  that  of  all  his  creations,  whether  plays  or  novels, 
there  is  but  one,  and  that  not  the  best,  to  which  we  can 
attribute  any  personally  combative  design.  All  the  author 
has  ever  set  before  himself,  is  to  perform  a  true  artist's 
work,  as  the  faithful  interpreter,  ^^  objective  and  naive," 
as  Dostoievski  said,  of  Nature.  But  the  nature  and  scope 
of  a  work  cannot  be  judged  by  the  intentions  of  its 
maker.  It  has  been  said  of  Pissemski,  as  it  has  been 
said  of  Zola,  ''That  he  saw  things  y^rough  dirt,"  and 
the  result  of  this  is  that  he  must  be  classed,  however 
much  against  his  own  desire,  amongst  the  most  bitter 
detractors,  and  the  most  merciless  accusers,  of  his  period. 
The  subjects  and  the  heroes  of  his  books  frequently 
bear  a  close  resemblance  to  those  which  were  so  dear  to 
Tourgueniev,  and  even  to  Lermontov.    The-  Batmanov  of 


PISSEMSKI 


319 


the  novel  of  that  name,  is  closely  related  to  Pietchorine, 
but  you  would  take  it  for  a  picture  by  Rembrandt,  re- 
painted by  Teniers. 

Like  Saltykov-Chtchedrine,  Alexis  F£ofilaktovitch 
PiSSEMSKi  (1820-1881)  was  born  of  an  ancient  noble 
family,  originally  settled  in  the  Government  of  Kostroma. 
In  1582,  one  of  his  ancestors  was  sent  to  England  by 
Ivan  the  Terrible,  in  connection  with  a  proposed  marriage 
between  the  Tzar  and  one  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  kins- 
women. Alexis  F^ofilaktovitch  belonged  to  an  impover- 
ished branch  of  this  aristocratic  race.  He  has  himself 
related  that  his  grandfather  did  not  know  how  to  read, 
wore  sandals  {lapti\  and  tilled  his  own  scrap  of  land. 
His  father,  whom  he  has  taken  as  the  type  of  a  veteran  in 
one  of  his  stories,  began  by  serving  as  a  private  soldier, 
and  never  rose  above  the  rank  of  major.  These  circum- 
stances must  have  affected  the  education  of  the  future 
novelist.  Pissemski,  like  Gogol  and  Dostoievski,  never 
possessed  much  general  education,  and  like  them,  not 
having  been  taught  to  think,  he  inclined  strongly  to 
mysticism.  When  he  left  the  University,  he  found  his 
father  dead,  his  mother  stricken  with  paralysis,  and  some- 
thing very  like  destitution  in  his  home.  He  attempted 
to  earn  his  livelihood  by  literature,  and  wrote  his  first 
novel  The  Times  of  the  Boyards  {Boiarchtchitia),  a  plea 
in  favour  of  free  love,  inspired  by  Indiana.  Its  pub- 
lication was  forbidden  by  the  Censure.  Pissemski 
attempted  the  administrative  career,  but  could  make 
nothing  of  it,  and  finally,  in  1855,  he  earned  great  suc- 
cess with  a  second  novel.  The  Muff  {Tioufiak),  a  study  of 
a  man  without  energy  and  without  character,  which  he 
followed  by  a  succession  of  tales  relating  to  provincial 
incidents  and  touching,  like  those  of  Tourgueniev,  on 


320  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

popular  life.  In  these,  Zola's  mania  for  trivial  detail  is 
aggravated  by  a  peculiar  stamp  of  pessimism,  which 
ascribes  the  complex  motives  of  human  nature  to  two 
mainsprings  and  no  more  —  cupidity  in  some  cases, 
sexual  instinct  in  the  rest.  But  the  peasants  he  con- 
jures up  are  generally  admirably  true  to  life.  In  1858 
there  appeared,  together  with  the  Bo'iarchtchina^  which 
was  now  authorised  by  the  Censure,  the  best  of  all 
Pissemski's  novels,  A  Thousand  Souls  {Tyssiatcha  doucJi)^ 
a  gloomy  picture,  wherein  the  worst  sides  of  Russian 
existence  before  the  reform  are  thrown  into  as  strong, 
and  more  cruel  relief,  than  even  in  the  work  of  Chtche- 
drine.  The  hero  of  this  book,  Kalinovitch,  a  man  of 
talent  and  energy,  climbs  to  fortune  by  sacrificing  a 
young  girl  who  has  devoted  herself  to  him,  and  marry- 
ing, according  to  a  shameful  bargain,  the  mistress  of 
a  prince.  He  becomes  governor  of  a  province,  and 
endeavours  to  atone  for  his  past  by  applying  the  rational 
theories  he  has  learnt  at  the  university ;  is  stubbornly 
resisted  by  an  administrative  and  social  organisation 
founded  on  abuses  of  every  kind ;  and  finally  comes  to 
disgrace  and  ruin.  He  then  meets  once  more  with 
Nastienka,  the  woman  he  has  so  shamefully  deserted, 
who  has  meanwhile  become  a  provincial  actress,  marries 
her,  and  shares  with  her  the  remnants  of  an  ill-gotten 
fortune,  without  any  desire  to  attain  anything  more 
in  life. 

In  spite  of  some  apparent  contradictions,  the  char- 
acter of  Kalinovitch  is  carefully  studied,  and  logically 
constructed.  The  action  of  the  story  in  which  he  plays 
the  principal  part  is  interesting  and  well  planned.  The 
author  goes  straight  to  his  point,  like  a  rifle-bullet,  with- 
out any  discernible  regard   for   aesthetics   or   morality. 


PISSEMSKI  321 

His  gloomy  figures  are  sketched  with  broad,  dry,  heavy, 
strokes,  on  a  dark  background.  There  is  not  a  figure, 
except  that  of  Nastienka,  which  has  a  touch  of  Ught  upon 
it.  And  Nastienka  herself,  a  provincial  actress  who  pre- 
serves her  virtue,  strikes  one  as  a  somewhat  paradoxical 
figure,  even  for  Russia.  The  background,  with  its  repre- 
sentation of  provincial  life,  recalls  Chtchedrine,  but  many 
of  its  features  are  still  more  repulsive.  ^'  A  man  must 
possess  a  great  reserve  of  courage  to  be  able  to  live  in 
such  society ! "  so  says  Pissemski  himself,  in  a  novel  of 
a  similar  type.  An  Old  Mans  Sin, 

Meanwhile,  the  author  endowed  the  Russian  theatre 
with  a  play  entitled  Cruel  Fate  {Goj'kaia  Soudbina),  the 
first  founded  on  popular  life  which  earned  any  success  in 
the  country  before  the  appearance  of  Tolstoi's  Power  of 
Darkness.  This  success  must  be  more  especially  ascribed 
to  the  manner  in  which  the  subject  is  presented,  and 
way  in  which  the  cruel  fate  of  a  half-emancipated  serf, 
who  goes  to  seek  his  fortune  in  St.  Petersburg,  and 
comes  back  to  find  his  domestic  happiness  destroyed, 
his  wife  become  his  master's  concubine,  and  the  mother 
of  a  child  who  is  the  Barine's  child,  is  described.  Yet 
its  success  is  certainly  surprising,  for  it  undoubtedly 
depends,  to  a  great  extent,  firstly  on  melodramatic 
effects  of  a  somewhat  coarse  nature,  the  murder  of 
the  child  by  the  outraged  husband,  which  takes  place 
almost  on  the  stage,  and  then  on  an  interpretation  of  the 
law  of  serfdom  and  its  consequences,  which  really  is 
strained,  and  anything  but  true.  All  the  figures  in  the 
play,  whether  owners  or  serfs,  with  the  exception  of  the 
officials  of  every  rank,  are  good,  generous,  and  tender- 
hearted ;  and  yet  the  infernal  law  leads  them  on  into 
crime. 


322  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

In  his  later  works,  Pissemski  endeavoured  to  make 
amends  for  this  lapse  from  his  principles.  The  public 
blamed  him.  In  Russia,  the  years  following  on  the  great 
act  of  emancipation  were  a  troublous  period,  during 
which  the  sentiment  of  reality  was  entirely  obliterated 
by  a  cloud  of  reforming  dreams  and  Utopian  fancies. 
When  Pissemski  endeavoured  to  react  against  these,  as 
in  his  Furious  Sea  ( Vzbalamoutchennoie  Morie)y  he  only 
succeeded  in  displeasing  everybody.  The  Liberals  ac- 
cused him  of  apostasy,  and,  with  the  usual  injustice  of 
political  parties,  ascribed  his  attitude  to  personal  motives 
which  had  no  real  existence.  He  was  still  showing  things 
as  he  saw  them,  and  he  could  see  nothing  practical  in 
contemporary  radicaUsm.  Living  in  the  midst  of  men 
saturated  with  bookish  theories,  he  exemplified  the  com- 
monplace spirit  of  the  provincial  saniodour.  His  last 
years  were  saddened  by  periodical  attacks  of  hypochon- 
dria.    He  had  lived  too  long. 

The  general  spirit  of  his  work  resembles  that  of 
Gontcharov,  who,  like  him,  struck  a  matter-of-fact  note, 
in  opposition  to  the  somewhat  romantic  realism  of 
Tourgu^niev,  and,  like  him,  cast  ridicule  and  reproba- 
tion upon  people  who  have  nothing  to  offer  but  ideas. 
In  Pissemski's  eyes,  as  in  Gontcharov's,  action  is  every- 
thing. They  are  followers  of  Gogol,  just  as  Tourgueniev 
is  the  follower  of  Pouchkine.  The  difference  between 
them  and  the  author  of  A  Hunte7''s  Memories  resides 
more  particularly  in  the  fact  that  this  last  is,  on  the 
whole,  a  describer  of  exceptional  types,  just  as  he  is  a 
painter  of  magnificent  landscapes.  They,  on  the  con- 
trary, resolutely  bestow  all  their  attention  on  common 
things,  and  ordinary  men.  Everything  outside  this  cate- 
gory strikes  them  as  being  either   false   or   ridiculous. 


NEKRASSOV  323 

Like  Tourgueniev,  they  consider  the  Hfe  of  their  own 
period  both  evil  and  unendurable  ;  but  they  do  not  share 
his  opinion  that  these  vices  can  only  be  corrected  by 
men  of  special  virtues,  or  by  heroes.  The  everyday 
vulgar  man  should  suffice,  if  only  he  were  not  indolent. 
Their  favourite  personages — Bielavine  in  A  Thousand 
Souls  and  Peter  Ivanovitch  in  A  Common  Story — are  men 
who  suit  themselves  to  the  times  in  which  they  live,  set 
an  aim  before  them,  and  succeed  in  reaching  it.  They 
bring  in  no  new  ideas  ;  they  only  bring  in  a  manner  of 
existence  which  is  new  to  the  Russian  man,  a  spirit  of 
practicality,  of  punctuality  and  energy.  Thus  they  re- 
present European  culture  far  better  than  the  great  good- 
for-nothing  idlers  depicted  by  Tourgueniev.  Unluckily, 
like  them,  they  are  only  half-civilised  men.  They  have 
the  substance,  the  others  have  the  form.  And  the  result 
is  very  much  the  same,  as  negative  in  one  case  as  in  the 
other.  Gontcharov  himself  seems  to  have  recognised 
the  failure  of  this  generation  of  positive  men,  for  his 
Oblomov  only  obtains  the  common  fate  of  the  traditional 
legne — idleness,  inertia,  a  fatty  heart,  and  apoplexy  at 
the  close. 

I  now  pass  on  to  an  undeniable  representative  of  the 
confraternity  of  literary  chastisers  of  this  period,  a  poet 
who,  like  Chtchedrine,  possessed  all  the  instincts  of  the 
executioner,  and  who  at  the  same  time  was  an  extra- 
ordinary type  of  the  proletary — one  who  bore  in  his 
soul,  and  vented  on  others,  all  the  spites  and  furies  and 
hatreds  of  an  outcast  race,  to  which  he  did  not  himself 
belong  by  right  of  blood.  NICHOLAS  Alexi£ievitck 
N£krassov  (1821-1876)  was  born  in  a  small  town  in 
Podolia,  where  his  father  was  quartered.  The  family 
circle    was    completed  by   a    mother   of    Polish   origin, 


324  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

(Zakrzewska),  and  a  dozen  brothers  and  sisters.  It 
belonged  to  the  small  provincial  nobility.  The  father, 
having  led  the  ill-regulated  life  of  the  gentlemen  of  his 
time;  and  dissipated  a  modest  patrimony,  had  been  ob- 
liged to  undertake  the  humble  functions  of  a  rural  police 
Commissary.  Young  Nicholas  often  accompanied  him 
on  his  rounds,  and  thus  became  acquainted  with  the 
popular  life,  its  habits,  thoughts,  and  sufferings.  When 
the  child  grew  into  a  youth  he  was  sent  into  the  Corps 
of  Cadets  at  St.  Petersburg,  but  he  was  not  to  stay  there. 
His  mother,  a  dreamy,  passionate  creature,  had  kindled 
a  spark  within  his  heart,  which  the  great  city  fanned 
into  a  flame.  Instead  of  preparing  himself  for  the  career 
of  arms,  Nicholas  Alexieievitch  attended  the  university 
lectures,  and  mingled  in  literary  circles.  Treated  as  a 
rebellious  son,  and  deprived  of  remittances,  he  gave 
lessons,  corrected  proofs,  supplied  compilations  to  news- 
papers, and  often  went  hungry.  ^'  For  three  years  I  was 
hungry  every  day,"  he  would  say,  later  ;  and  at  the  same 
time,  with  that  cynicism  which  is  one  of  the  least  attrac- 
tive features  of  his  talent,  he  reproduced  in  one  of  his 
poems  the  following  autobiographical  anecdote — that  his 
mistress  went  out,  one  night,  dressed  in  the  gayest  attire, 
and  returned  home  carrying  a  tiny  coffin  for  the  baby 
which  had  just  died,  and  food  for  the  father  who  had 
been  starving  since  the  previous  evening  ! 

Encouraged  by  N.  A.  Polevoi,  Nekrassov  ended  by 
publishing  some  lines  in  the  Literary  Gazette  and  in  the 
Annals  of  the  Fatherland.  A  little  later  a  collection  of 
poems,  entiled  Dreams  and  Strains^  greeted  with  friendly 
appreciation  by  Polevoi  and  Joukovski,  definitely  opened 
the  literary  career  before  him.  But  up  till  1845,  he  was 
to  struggle  with  poverty,  working  ceaselessly  at  every  kind 


NEKRASSOV  325 

of  style,  and  even  attempting  comic  opera,  under  the 
pseudonym  of  "  Perepielski."  Between  1845  and  1846, 
the  success  of  two  other  collections  of  his  work,  The 
Physiology  of  St.  Petersburg  and  the  St,  Petersburg  Mis- 
cellany^ together  with  Bielinski's  eulogistic  verdict  upon 
them,  brought  him  the  beginnings  of  glory  and  ease. 
Before  long  he  joined  Panaiev  in  the  editorship  of  The 
Contemporary y  founded  by  Pouchkine,  and  in  two  years 
he  had  grown  rich.  But  here  came  a  fresh  disappoint- 
ment. As  fortune  smiled  upon  him,  his  friends  forsook 
him.  Various  reports  circulated  concerning  the  origin 
and  constitution  of  the  wealth  so  swiftly  acquired.  A 
discord  always  existed  between  the  poetic  existence  of 
Nekrassov,  and  his  practical  life,  and  some  of  his  lyric 
compositions  bear  traces  of  the  fact.  The  future  held 
some  compensations  for  him.  The  boldnes-s  he  showed 
in  a  series  of  new  works,  in  which  he  touched  on  the 
most  sensitive  sores  of  Russian  life,  the  power  of  invec- 
tive and  satire  which  he  there  displayed,  and  the  fresh 
poetic  elements  which  he  succeeded  in  introducing,  were, 
towards  1870,  to  make  him  the  idol  of  the  youth  of  that 
period. 

He  says  of  himself,  several  times  over,  that  the  only 
source  of  inspiration  known  to  him  was  indignation  : 
^^  I  have  no  memory  of  any  smiling  and  caressing  Muse 
who  sang  sweet  songs  beside  my  pillow,  .  .  .  /  owed  my 
early  inspiration  to  the  Muse  of  sobs,  of  mourning^  and  of 
paifi — the  Muse  of  the  starving  and  the  beggar  I  ^^  And  in 
one  of  his  last  poems,  he  speaks  of  his  ^^  old  heart  broken 
down  with  hate."  His  satire  is  of  the  fiercest  kind.  He 
is  capable  of  dropping  his  cruel  irony  even  on  to  the 
cradle  of  a  sleeping  child.  ^^  Sleepy  baby,  sleep !  Good 
news  has  come  into  the  country.      Your  father ^  with  all  his 


326  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

crimes^  has  at  last  been  brought  to  judgment ;  but  your  fatheVy 
arrant  I'ogue^  will  manage  to  escape.  Sleepy  youngstery 
sleep  while  you  are  honest  —  sleepy  baby^  sleep!''  His 
gloomy  poetry  occasionally  recalls  that  of  Crabbe. 
He  pours  forth  a  torrent  of  sarcasm,  anathema,  and 
reproach,  on  every  rank  of  Russian  society.  Occa- 
sionally the  lyric  poet  grows  stronger  than  the  satirist, 
and  he  calls  up  figures  which  are  not  ideal  indeed — he 
is  too  realistic  for  that — but  which  possess  a  sympathetic 
reahty :  princesses,  who  remind  one  of  the  ancient 
Roman  matrons ;  men  of  the  people,  humble  and 
patient,  but  good  and  strong  amidst  the  darkness  about 
them,  the  darkness  of  an  "  underground  prison  without 
a  light!'  and  such  martyrs  of  the  struggle  for  light  as 
Bielinski,  Dobrolioubov,  and  Pissarev. 

But  these  are  rare  gleams  of  light.  Even  when 
Nekrassov  paints  the  popular  life — his  favourite  subject, 
his  great  love,  his  passion — he  follows  the  tw^ofold  line 
which  corresponds  in  a  manner  to  the  positive  and 
negative  poles  of  his  talent,  and  always  ends  in  an  abyss 
of  the  darkest  desolation.  In  both  cases  the  author's 
method  is  the  same.  The  initial  theme  is  some  corner  of 
Russian  country,  dreary  and  flat,  with  little  that  is  pic- 
turesque about  it,  the  home  of  a  certain  number  of  human 
beings,  none  of  whom  are  marked  by  any  very  strik- 
ing qualities.  On  this  subject  the  artist's  fancy  seizes, 
and  gradually  landscape  and  figures  fill  with  an  intense 
life.  They  grow  on  us,  taking  on  a  mythical  and  legen- 
dary aspect,  until  the  whole  of  mighty  Russia  appears 
before  us  in  the  frame  of  some  rustic  story.  Thus,  in  the 
Frost  with  the  Red  Nose  {Morozk  krasnyi  noss),  we  have 
a  magnificent  allegorical  evocation  of  the  Russian  win- 
ter, that  terrible  lord  who  reigns  over  a  whole  world  of 


NEKRASSOV  327 

misery  and  suffering.  In  The  Tro'ikay  again,  we  have  the 
complete  legend  of  the  destiny  of  woman  under  those 
humble  thatched  roofs.  And  in  each  case  the  picture 
leaves  us  with  the  same  impression  of  sadness.  Only 
in  the  first,  Daria,  the  wife  of  the  moujik  who  is  dying 
of  cold,  is  full  of  a  calm  and  heroic  beauty ;  whereas, 
in  the  second,  the  young  girl  whose  eyes  follow  the 
post-chaise  out  of  which  an  officer  has  smiled  to  her, 
is  but  a  poor  creature,  the  sport  of  a  passing  vision  of 
happiness.  And  the  ray  of  light  which  falls  on  her  for 
that  short  moment,  only  to  leave  her  once  more  in  the 
shadow,  merely  serves  to  throw  out,  in  merciless  oppo- 
sition, the  two  sides  of  a  destiny  of  which  the  best  is 
not  for  her  :  what  that  peasant  girl  might  have  become, 
if  she  could  have  driven  away  in  that  carriage,  and 
what  she  must  become  if  she  remains  in  the  village, 
soon  to  be  the  wife  of  some  drunken  and  quarrelsome 
peasant,  his  slave  and  beast  of  burden,  till  a  handful  of 
earth  is  thrown  '^  on  a  bosom  which  no  caress  will  ever  have 
warmed!'' 

Nekrassov  has  frequently  been  compared  to  Dostoi'- 
evski.  Yet  an  essential  difference  does  exist  between 
this  poet  and  all  contemporary  Russian  novelists.  This 
difference,  while  constituting  an  element  of  originality,  is 
at  the  same  time  one  of  relative  inferiority.  We  shall 
not  find,  in  his  case,  that  basis  of  submissive  mysticism, 
and  mystic  love  for  those  who  suffer,  which  forms  the 
basis  of  the  work  of  his  fellows.  Nekrassov  was  as 
much  of  a  publicist  as  of  a  poet,  a  man  of  positive 
and  atheistic  mind,  and  he  is  a  revolutionary  in  the 
Western,  and  not  in  the  Russian,  sense.  On  this  account 
it  is  that  he  frequently  falls  into  declamation.  This  fault 
is  very  evident  in  the  poem.  Who  Finds  it  Good  to  Live  in 

22 


328  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Russia? — one  in  which,  having  regard  to  its  date  (1864), 
one  would  hardly  expect  to  find  it.  Some  peasants 
sitting  talking,  when  their  work  is  over,  complain  of 
their  sufferings.  To  whom  in  Russia  does  life  bring 
joy  and  peace  and  liberty  ?  To  solve  the  problem,  these 
ragged  philosophers  look  hither  and  thither,  search  their 
native  country  up  hill  and  down  dale,  question  every 
one  they  meet  —  officials,  landed  proprietors,  priests, 
merchants,  their  ow^n  fellow-toilers.  From  every  one 
comes  the  same  response,  mournful  arid  negative.  Re- 
garded as  an  accumulation  of  expressive  pictures  the 
work  is  a  fine  one,  but  in  conception  it  is  exaggerated, 
strained,  and  false.  It  reminds  one  of  a  newspaper  con- 
troversy, and  recalls  Chastisements ^  rather  than  The  House 
of  the  Dead. 

When  Nekrassov  persuaded  himself  that  his  hatred 
was  nothing  but  love  for  the  people  driven  inward,  he 
deceived  himself.  He  did  little  practically  to  prove  his 
love ;  and  even  poetically  speaking,  he  has  only  given 
it  reasonable  expression  in  the  eight  couplets,  written 
in  1 861,  to  greet  the  new  era  inaugurated  by  the  Eman- 
cipation. After  that,  he  continued,  as  if  nothing  had 
happened,  to  rage  and  mourn  and  curse  over  an 
evil  which,  had  no  further  existence.  One  judge — the 
wisest  and  the  least  open  to  suspicion  of  his  class — 
has  not  been  deceived.  Violent  as  they  were,  the  verses 
written  by  this  "  Russian  Vall^s,"  as  M.  de  Vogiie  has 
called  him — a  Valles  who  grew  rich  by  dubious  specula- 
tion— were  always  spared  by  the  Censor. 

As  a  thinker,  Nekrassov  lived  on  one  idea,  and  one 
only — the  liberation  of  the  serfs.  He  was  so  convinced 
the  idea  was  his  own,  and  so  incapable  of  replacing 
it    by    another,    that    after    1861    he    was   very    much 


NEKRASSOV  329 

inclined  to  cry,  ^^  Stop,  thief ! "  And  then  he  fell  to 
making  fresh  speeches  on  a  topic  which  had  lost 
all  interest.  As  an  artist,  his  great  gift  was  his  mar- 
vell-ous  descriptive  power.  In  the  Unfortunates^  into 
which  he  has  put  a  great  deal  of  his  own  personality, 
you  will  find  a  picture  of  St.  Petersburg  worthy  to  be 
compared  with  the  best  of  the  same  kind  in  Eugene 
Onieguine.  And  I  should  not  be  surprised  if  Nekrassov 
had  the  best  of  the  comparison.  But  both  pictures  are 
incomplete.  Pouchkine  saw  nothing  but  the  brilliant 
and  splendid  aspects  of  the  capital;  Nekrassov,  on  his 
side,  only  looked  at  the  humbler  folk,  bowed  down  from 
early  dawn  under  the  burden  of  their  daily  task.  In 
strength  of  drawing  and  powder  of  representation  the 
second  picture  may  perhaps  be  thought  superior.  The 
*'  sick  day,"  the  slow  foggy  dawn  which  hangs  over  the 
crowd  of  labourers  and  humble  employes,  and  guides 
them  to  their  work,  and  the  whole  description  of  the 
early  morning  hours  in  the  streets  of  the  great  city,  is 
exceedingly  striking  and  truthful. 

The  poet  himself  declared  himself  lacking  in  the 
creative  genius  needed  for  the  substance  of  his  work, 
and  recognised  his  artistic  inadequacies  in  the  matter 
of  form.  ^^  /  do  not  flatter  myself  that  any  of  my  verses 
will  endui'e  in  the  popular  memory.  .  .  .  There  is  no 
bold  poetry  in  you,  O  my  fierce  and  clumsy  lilies !  no 
touch  of  creative  genius."  Nekrassov  has  left  a  great 
name,  but  he  has  left  no  school  behind  him.  Among 
his  imitators,  lahontov,  Borovikovski,  and  Fiodorov,  this 
last,  who  wrote  under  the  pseudonym  of  Omoulevski, 
and  died  in  1883  of  starvation  and  drink,  was  the  most 
original. 


CHAPTER   X 

THE  PREACHERS— DOSTOiEVSKI  AND  TOLSTOI 

Of  the  Pleiad  which,  after  the  year  1840,  won  so  high 
a  position  for  the  Russian  novel  in  European  literature, 
three  writers  stand  out  and  form  a  group  apart.  Ser- 
gius  Akssakov,  Dostoievski,  and  Tolstoi'.  They  form  the 
strongest  contrast  with  the  group  I  have  just  endea- 
voured to  describe.  Instead  of  rising  up  in  revolt 
against  contemporary  realities,  they  are  full  of  sympathy 
with  them.  Far  from  dreaming  of  some  ideal  future, 
they  perceive  the  accomplishment  of  their  dream  in  a 
humble  agreement  with  the  present.  Instead  of  search- 
ing hither  and  thither  for  men  ^^such  as  we  need," — 
heroes  in  thought  or  action,  who  should  rule  the  herd, 
and  guide  it  to  its  proper  destiny,  they  preach  the  insig- 
nificance of  the  individual  in  regard  to  the  majority, — 
the  impossibility  of  individual  leadership, — the  necessity 
that  every  unit  should  bow  before  the  truths  which 
the  majority  has  accepted.  This  is  the  teaching  of  Aks- 
sakov's  Family  Chronicky  Dostoievski's  Brothers  Kara- 
7nazoVy  and  Tolstoi's  Stories  of  Sevastopol. 

This  fundamental  idea  has  found  a  specially  eloquent 
expression  in  the  work  of  Tolstoi,  but  it  is  a  common 
bond  between  all  three  writers,  though  Akssakov,  both 
by  his  form  and  his  expression,  approaches  nearer  to 
Tourgueniev,  and  this  in  spite  of  his  Slavophilism, 
though  Tolstoi  is  apparently  quite  uninfluenced  by  the 


AKSSAKOV  331 

Slavophil  theory,  and  though  Dostoievski  possesses  none 
of  that  objective  plasticity  which  gives  Tolstoi  so  high  a 
position  among  the  great  creators.  All  three  have  been 
moved  by  one  common  thought,  expressed,  in  Akssakov's 
case,  by  his  conception  of  a  harmony  of  high  qualities 
and  virtues  realised  in  the  bosom  of  an  aristocratic 
family  ;  in  Dostoievski's,  by  a  moral  and  religious  teach- 
ing saturated  with  mysticism  ;  and  in  Tolstoi's  by  his  in- 
stinctive and  half-conscious  notion  of  a  "  truth  of  life  " 
superior  to  all  theoretical  conceptions. 

The  author  of  the  Family  Chronicle,  Sergius  TlMO- 
Fi£i£viTCH  AKSSAKOV  (1791-1859),  was  the  father  of  the 
two  famous  Slavophils.  His  Memories  of  a  Hunter^ 
which  preceded  those  of  Tourgueniev,  give,  with  much 
simplicity  and  humorous  good-nature,  a  delightful  and 
highly  idealised  picture  of  the  wild  and  romantic  deni- 
zens of  the  forest  and  the  steppe,  where  the  author  had 
spent  his  youth.  He  was  close  on  old  age  when  these 
stories  were  published,  in  1847.  Up  till  that  time  he  had 
played  a  somewhat  obscure  part  in  the  literary  life  of 
his  day, — partly  as  the  friend  of  Chichkov,  partly  as  the 
resolute  supporter  of  the  classical  traditions  and  forms, 
and  partly  as  a  Censor.  Fresh  acquaintanceships,  and  the 
enthusiasm  of  his  son  Constantine  for  the  work  of  Gogol^ 
impelled  him  in  a  different  direction.  The  success  which 
he  attained  seems  to  have  acquainted  him  with  the 
nature  of  his  own  talent,  and,  between  1856  and  1858,  a 
fresh  series  of  tales.  The  Family  Chronicle,  The  Childish 
Years  of  the  Grandchildren  of  Bagrov,  and  Memories, — 
which  together  make  up  a  picture  of  patriarchal,  and  in  a 
sense,  of  elementary  life,  such  as  may  have  existed  at  the 
beginning  of  this  century  in  the  government  of  Oufa, — 
earned  him  the  title  of  the  Walter  Scott,  and  even  of  the 


3  32  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Homer,  of  Russia.  A  peaceful  life,  without  conflict  or 
struggle  of  any  sort,  was  that  over  which  old  grand- 
father Bagrov  wielded  an  absolute  authority,  founded 
not  on  any  superiority  either  of  mind  or  character,  but 
simply  and  solely  on  tradition.  It  is,  in  fact,  an  ideali- 
sation of  the  old  order  of  things,  and  the  very  quint- 
essence of  Slavophilism — which  fact  has  not  prevented 
Dobrolioubov  from  drawing,  from  these  very  pages,  a 
picture  of  the  ''good  old  times"  which  does  them  extra- 
ordinarily little  credit.  Akssakov  piqued  himself  on  put- 
ting a  certain  amount  of  historical  truth  into  this  work, 
which  holds  an  intermediate  place  between  the  novel 
and  the  memoir,  and  has  introduced,  with  comments  of 
his  own,  various  facts  from  which  the  revolutionary 
critic  was  to  draw  quite  different  conclusions.  But 
Dostoievski  and  Tolstoi  were  already  in  existence,  ready 
to  endow  art  and  religion  with  a  new  and  broader  formula. 
The  father  of  FiODOR  MiKHAiLOViTCH  Dostoievski 
(1822-1881)  was  a  military  surgeon,  and  thus  it  came  about 
that  the  future  author  first  saw  the  light  within  the  walls  of 
a  hospital.  He  had  an  elder  brother  named  Michael,  who 
earned  some  reputation  for  his  translations  of  Schiller  and 
Goethe,  and  his  editorship  of  two  reviews.  The  Times  and 
The  Epoch y  both  of  which  made  their  mark  in  the  history 
of  the  Russian  press.  Though  his  childhood  was  sickly, 
subject  to  hallucinations,  and,  before  long,  to  periodi- 
cal attacks  of  epilepsy,  he  passed  with  brilliant  success 
through  the  St.  Petersburg  School  of  Engineering,  and 
took  the  third  place  in  the  final  examination.  A  lucrative 
career  lay  before  him.  But  the  literary  fever  of  the 
times  had  even  reached  the  pupils  of  the  military  schools, 
and  the  young  engineer  could  not  resist  the  call  of  his 
vocation. 


DOSTOIEVSKI  333 

The  strange  and  romantic  opening  of  the  literary 
life  of  one  who  was  shortly  to  become  a  master  of 
the  realist  school  has  been  frequently  related.  Another 
beginner,  Grigorovitch,  introduced  him  to  Nekrassov, 
who  was  then  preparing  to  publish  a  review,  and  was 
looking  about  for  contributors.  Dostoievski,  put  out  of 
countenance  by  the  poet's  cold  reception,  thrust  the 
manuscript  of  his  first  novel  into  his  hand,  and  fled  like 
a  thief,  without  opening  his  lips.  In  his  confusion  and 
despair,  he  sought  distraction  at  one  of  the  gatherings 
very  common  at  that  period,  at  which  a  number  of  young 
men  of  his  own  age  were  accustomed  to  spend  the  night 
in  reading  the  works  of  Gogol  aloud.  Coming  home  at 
dawn — it  was  in  mid-May — and  feeling  wakeful,  he  sat 
musing  by  his  open  window  till  he  was  startled  by  the 
ringing  of  a  bell.  He  opened  his  door,  and  found  him- 
self in  the  arms  of  Nekrassov  and  of  Grigorovitch,  who, 
on  their  side,  had  spent  the  night  in  reading  his  novel. 
Those  were  heroic  days  !  The  following  morning,  Nek- 
rassov carried  the  manuscript  to  Bielinski. 

"  Let  me  announce  the  appearance  of  a  new  Gogol  ! " 

**They  sprout  like  mushrooms  nowadays,"  was  the 
critic's  unencouraging  reply.  Yet  he,  too,  read  the  manu- 
script, and  asked  to  see  the  author. 

'^  Do  you  understand  what  you  have  written  your- 
self ?  " 

The  book  was  called  Poor  Folk^,  and  was  published, 
during  1846,  in  Nekrassov's  Review.  Its  success  was 
so  great  that  the  author  at  once  became  a  celebrity. 
Dostoievski's  work  was  at  bottom  nothing  but  a  replica 
of  The  Mantle.  His  hero,  Makar  Dievouchkine,  was  own 
brother  to  Akakii  Akakievitch.  But  Gogol  had  only 
shown  the  external  features  of  his  quaint  and  touching 


334  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

figure,  which  never  ceased  to  be  comic,  in  spite  of  the 
pity  it  inspired.  In  Makar  Dievouchkine  we  are  shown 
the  depths  of  a  sensitive  and  suffering  soul,  and  in  this 
case  the  gentleness  and  patience  of  the  poor  creature, 
almost  laughable  in  Akakii  Akakicvitch,  become  well-nigh 
heroic,  and  this  although  the  author  has  not  specially 
idealised  the  character.  Dievouchkine  is  a  drunkard, 
coarse  in  habits  and  dull  in  mind.  When  his  official 
chief  shakes  hands  with  him,  after  having  enriched  him 
with  a  hundred-rouble  note,  he  is  in  the  seventh  heaven. 
Yet  even  such  a  creature  is  capable,  as  the  author  con- 
ceives him,  of  inspiring  us  not  with  pity  only,  but  with 
admiration  ;  and  from  this  time  forward  the  conception  is 
to  be  the  ruling  one  in  all  the  novelist's  work. 

From  the  purely  artistic  point  of  view.  Poor  Folksy 
with  its  clumsy  application  of  the  epistolary  form  of 
novel,  the  letters  passing  between  a  humble  employe, 
elderly  and  decidedly  small-minded,  and  a  Heloise  who 
burns  her  hand  with  her  smoothing-iron,  frequently  fails 
both  in  probability  and  naturalness.  But  the  details 
are  charming.  And  what  powers  of  psychology  we  see 
revealed  by  this  writer,  scarcely  twenty  years  old  !  What 
precocious  observation  in  the  unconscious  selfishness  of 
the  young  girl  whose  character  he  paints  !  We  behold 
her  loading  the  unhappy  wretch  who  lives  only  for 
her,  and  has  stripped  himself  of  everything  for  her  sake, 
with  reproaches,  and  even  with  threats.  How  quickly, 
when  she  hears  of  his  spending  a  few  coins  at  the  tavern, 
does  she  forget  everything  she  owes  him,  even  in  the 
matter  of  pecuniary  sacrifices  !  She  sends  him  thirty 
kopeks,  but  she  warns  him  never  to  do  it  again  !  And 
the  commissions,  the  purchases  of  trumpery  and  trinkets 
which  she  sends  him  to  make,  in  view  of  a  detestable 


DOSTOIEVSKI  335 

marriage  to  which  she  has  agreed,  and  which  is  to  de- 
prive him  of  the  last  remnants  of  happiness  left  him  by 
his  miserable  fate  !  "  Don't  forget  !  it  must  be  good 
tambour  work,  and  I'll  have  no  flat  stitches  !  "  Then  note 
her  occasional  revulsions  of  pity  and  affectionate  indul- 
gence, while  he  is  all  constancy,  inexhaustible  resignation, 
humble  and  unchanging  adoration  !  There  are  miracles 
of  intuition  here,  and  marvels  of  delicate  feeling ! 

Bielinski  understood  the  young  author  thoroughly. 
*^  He  owes  a  great  deal  to  Gogol,  just  as  Lermontov  owes 
a  great  deal  to  Pouchkine  ;  but  he  is  original.-  He  begins 
as  no  author  before  him  has  ever  begun."  Dostoievski, 
thus  encouraged,  set  to  work  once  more,  with  all  that 
vehemence  which  was  ultimately  to  endanger  his  health, 
and  that  haste  which  was  always  the  characteristic  of, 
and  the  drawback  to,  his  creative  power.  He  was  only 
moderately  pleased  with  his  second  attempt.  The  Alter 
EgOy  which  did  not  take  its  place  in  the  complete 
collection  of  his  works  until  a  much  later  period.  But 
he  forthwith,  and  at  one  and  the  same  time,  undertook 
ten  other  novels.  Already  he  was  beginning  to  compare 
himself  to  a  post-horse.  But  his  course  was  suddenly 
checked.  On  the  21st  of  April  1849,  the  iron-bound 
doors  of  the  dungeons  of  the  Alexis  ravelin  in  the  citadel 
of  St.  Petersburg  closed  on  him,  and  on  thirty-four 
other  members  of  the  Petrachevski  circle. 

This  society,  formed  of  young  men  who  held  the 
views  of  Fourier,  and,  like  him,  ascribed  but  very  little 
importance  to  political  questions  properly  so  called,  was 
not  of  a  definitely  revolutionary  character.  Dostoievski's 
special  function  in  connection  with  it  was  to  preach  the 
Slavophil  doctrine,  according  to  which  Russia,  sociologi- 
cally speaking,  needed  no  Western  models,  because  in 


336  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

her  artels  (workman's  guilds)  and  her  system  of  mutual 
responsibiUty  for  the  payment  of  taxes  {Krougovaia  por- 
ouka)  she  was  already  possessed  of  the  means  of  realis- 
ing a  superior  form  of  social  arrangement.  One  evening, 
he  had  gone  so  far  as  to  declaim  Pouchkine's  Ode  on  the 
Abolition  of  Serfdom^  and  when,  amid  the  enthusiasm 
stirred  by  the  poet's  lines,  some  one  present  expressed 
a  doubt  of  the  possibility  of  obtaining  the  desired 
reform,  except  by  insurrectionary  means,  he  is  said  to 
have  replied  ^'Then  insurrection  let  it  be  ! "  No  further 
accusation  could  be  brought  against  him,  but  this  suf- 
ficed. On  the  22nd  of  December,  after  eight  months' 
imprisonment,  he  was  conducted,  with  twenty-one  other 
prisoners,  to  the  Siemionovski  Square,  where  a  scaffold 
had  been  erected.  The  prisoners  were  all  stripped  to 
their  shirts  (there  were  twenty-one  degrees  of  frost), 
and  their  sentence  was  read  out — they  were  condemned 
to  death.  Dostoievski  thought  it  must  be  a  horrible 
dream.  He  had  only  just  calmly  communicated  a  plan 
for  some  fresh  literary  composition  to  one  of  his  fellow- 
prisoners.  ^*  Is  it  possible  that  we  are  going  to  be  exe- 
cuted ?  "  he  asked.  The  friend  to  whom  he  had  addressed 
the  inquiry  pointed  to  a  cart  laden  with  objects  which, 
even  under  the  tarpaulin  which  covered  them,  looked 
like  coffins.  The  registrar  descended  from  the  scaffold, 
and  a  priest  ascended  it,  cross  in  hand,  and  exhorted 
the  condemned  men  to  make  their  last  confession.  One 
only,  a  man  of  the  shopkeeping  class,  obeyed  the  sum- 
mons, the  others  were  content  with  kissing  the  cross. 
In  a  letter  addressed  to  his  brother  Michael,  Dostoievski 
has  thus  related  the  close  of  the  tragic  scene.  ''They 
snapped  swords  over  our  heads,  and  they  made  us  put 
on  the   white   shirts   worn   by  persons    condemned   to 


^  DOSTOIEVSKI  337 

death.  Thereupon  we  were  bound  in  threes  to  stakes, 
to  suffer  execution.  Being  the  third  in  the  row,  I  con- 
cluded I  had  only  a  few  minutes  of  life  before  me.  I 
thought  of  you  and  your  dear  ones,  and  I  contrived  to 
kiss  Pletcheiev  and  Dourov,  who  were  next  to  me,  and 
to  bid  them  farewell.  Suddenly  the  troops  beat  a  tattoo, 
we  were  unbound,  brought  back  upon  the  scaffold,  and 
informed  that  his  Majesty  had  spared  us  our  lives." 

The  Tsar  had  reversed  the  judgment  of  the  military 
tribunal,  and  commuted  the  penalty  of  death  to  that  of 
hard  labour.  The  cart  contained  convict  uniforms,  which 
the  prisoners  had  at  once  to  put  on.  One  of  them, 
Grigoriev,  had  lost  his  reason. 

Dostoievski  was  more  fortunate.  He  was  always 
convinced  that  but  for  this  experience  he  would  have 
gone  mad.  By  a  singular  process  of  reaction,  the  con- 
vict prison  strengthened  him,  both  physically  and 
morally.  The  Muscovite  nature,  full,  as  it  is,  of  obscure 
atavism — the  inheritance  of  centuries  of  suffering — has 
an  incalculable  power  of  resistance.  At  the  end  of  four 
years  the  horrible  ^^  House  of  the  Dead"  opened  its 
gates,  and  the  novelist  returned  to  ordinary  life,  stronger 
in  body,  calmer  in  nerve,  better  balanced  in  mind.  He 
had  still  three  years  to  serve  in  a  regiment  as  a  private 
soldier.  When  these  were  over,  he  was  promoted  to  the 
rank  of  officer,  and  was  allowed  to  reside  first  at  Tver, 
and  then  at  St.  Petersburg.  He  contributed  to  The 
Times — the  review  managed  by  his  brother  Michael, 
published  his  collected  works,  and  in  i860  sent  forth 
another  novel,  The  Humiliated  and  the  Injured,  which 
was  somewhat  coldly  received  by  his  readers.  This  may 
be  easily  understood.  Vania  and  Natacha,  the  hero  and 
heroine  of  this  book,  are  near  relations  of  Dievouchkine, 


338  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

« 

but  they  possess  a  peculiarity  which  makes  the  resignation 
and  gentleness  with  which  they  endure  their  sufferings 
far  less  interesting — they  are  voluntary  victims.  Vania, 
who  loves  Natacha  with  all  his  heart,  urges  her,  no  one 
quite  knows  why,  to  marry  young  Prince  Valkovski, 
whose  mistress  she  has  already  become.  The  part  he 
plays — that  of  the  confidant  who  assists  a  love  affair  which 
is  driving  him  to  despair — is  either  dubious  or  ridicu- 
lous. Meanwhile,  Natacha,  though  desperately  in  love 
with  her  Prince,  agrees  to  marry  Vania.  Her  behaviour 
is  most  confusing,  and  her  lover's  folly  and  blundering 
render  him  a  most  improbable  figure.  Old  Valkovski, 
the  father  of  the  prince,  fulfils  the  functions  of  the  melo- 
dramatic villain.  Little  Nellie,  his  natural  daughter,  and 
his  victim,  is  both  graceful  and  charming,  but,  with  her 
English  name,  she  is  an  evident  importation  from  over 
seas — redolent  of  Dickens.  To  sum  the  matter  up, 
Dostoievski,  influenced  by  fresh  and  hasty  perusals  of 
various  authors,  has  simply  written  a  sentimental  novel 
in  the  style  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  introduced 
certain  reminiscences  of  Eugene  Sue,  who  was  always 
one  of  his  favourite  authors.  The  book  bears  symptoms 
of  a  certain  amount  of  personal  reminiscence  as  well. 

These  did  the  author  no  good  service.  But  he  was 
soon  to  recover  from  this  check. 

Before  long  (1862)  his  Memories  of  the  House  of  the 
Dead  WQVQ  to  appear,  simultaneously  with  Victor  Hugo's 
Les  Miserables.  The  general  admiration  excited,  even  in 
the  present  day,  by  Dostoievski's  description  of  that 
gloomy  place  of  suffering  in  which  four  years  of  his  life 
were  spent,  renders  this  portion  of  my  task  somewhat 
difficult.  I  cannot,  indeed,  shake  off  the  somewhat  diffe- 
rent impression  which  the  perusal  of  his  book  left  upon 


DOSTOIEVSKI  339 

me,  now  many  years  ago.  I  have  read  it  again,  and  I 
still  find  admirable  passages,  and  pictures  of  excessive 
power,  though  of  a  realism  the  coarseness  of  which  is  at 
times  excessive,  as,  for  instance,  in  the  scene  of  the 
prisoner's  bath,  and  in  that  of  the  arrival  of  those 
prisoners  who  have  been  beaten  with  rods,  in  the 
hospital.  I,  too,  admire  the  author's  deep  probing  of 
the  human  soul,  simple  and  true  in  expression,  to  a  point 
from  which  the  author  of  Les  Miserables  has  too  often 
fallen  away.  But  the  rest  of  the  book  strikes  me  as 
being  both  false  and  unacceptable.  This,  in  the  first 
place,  on  account  of  the  confusion — forced,  I  am  told, 
but  surely  somewhat 'voluntary  also — between  the  two 
categories  of  prisoners  in  the  establishment — the  com- 
mon-law criminals  and  the  political  culprits.  We  are 
told  that  this  confusion  was  imposed  on  the  author  by 
the  Censure.  That  may  be.  Yet  in  every  country  the 
Censure  leaves  the  author  one  resource,  the  use  of  which 
is  well  understood  in  Russia,  that  ''home  of  silence."  But 
the  truth,  and,  if  we  chose  to  take  it  so,  Dostoievski's 
excuse,  lies  in  the  fact  that  he  never  for  a  moment 
dreamt  of  cloaking  his  martyrdom  with  a  mask  of  in- 
famy. He  did  not  believe  in  his  own  martyrdom,  just  as 
he  had  no  belief  in  the  infamy  of  the  common  thieves 
and  murderers  who  were  his  companions  in  durance. 
This  confusion  arose  in  his  mind  naturally,  as  the  result 
of  a  general  tendency  which  leads  his  fellow-countrymen 
to  place  the  moral  law  and  the  political  law  on  one  and 
the  same  conventional  level,  and  to  ascribe  the  same  re- 
lative value  to  each.  In  their  eyes,  infractions  of  either 
of  these  laws  possess  the  same  character,  are  of  equal 
importance,  and  may  be  paid  for  by  a  system  of  iorfeits, 
just  as  in  a  round  game.     Once  the  forfeit  is  paid,  the 


340  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

individual  is  clear,  and  neither  crime  nor  dishonour  re- 
mains. This  feature  reappears  in  Crime  and  Punishment, 
Note  the  behaviour  of  the  examining  magistrate  once 
he  is  convinced  that  Raskolnikov  is  really  guilty  of  the 
crime — a  murder  followed  by  robbery — which  has  just 
been  committed.  Afterwards,  as  before,  he  gives  the 
assassin  his  hand,  and  treats  him  as  his  friend.  Even 
Tourgueniev,  Occidental  as  he  is,  thinks,  and,  on  this 
point,  feels  as  a  Russian.  No  writer  in  any  other  country 
would  dream  of  assimilating  the  social  position  of  a 
natural  child  with  that  of  the  legitimate  child  of  a  father 
sentenced  to  banishment  for  theft.  This  is  the  case  of 
Niejdanov  and  Marianne  in  Virgifn  Soil.  The  idea  that 
crime  is  not  a  fault,  but  a  misfortune,  and  the  idea  of 
the  sovereign  power  of  expiation,  are  the  basis  of 
this  method  of  thought  and  feeling.  They  pervade  the 
whole  of  Dostoievski's  work,  and  his  residence  in  the 
convict  prison  only  defined  them  more  clearly  in  his 
mind,  and  drove  him  to  adopt  their  extreme  though 
logical  consequences.  The  common-law  prisoners  whom 
he  met  never  dreamt,  on  their  side,  of  giving  him  the 
benefit  of  a  superior  position  from  the  moral  point  of 
view.  He  had  broken  one  law,  and  they  had  broken 
another.  In  their  eyes  it  was  all  the  same  thing.  This 
fact  made  a  deep  impression  upon  Dostoievski.  His 
imagination  was  romantic,  his  power  of  feeling  was  very 
keen,  and  he  possessed  no  ground-work  of  philosophic 
education.  He  was  very  easily  afifected  by  the  moral 
atmosphere  of  the  place.  It  was  full  of  floating  ideas, 
religious  and  mystic,  drawn  from  the  common  basis  of 
Russian  life  in  the  popular  classes.  These  influenced  the 
author,, and  through  them  he  entered  into  communion 
with  the  simple  souls  of  a  certain  number  of  criminals 


DOSTO'IEVSKI  341 

resi^ined  to  their  fate.  The  man  who  had  refused  to 
make  his  confession  on  the  scaffold,  reads  a  Bible  with 
his  fellow-prisoners— a  Bible  given  them  by  the  wife  of  a 
Decembrist  whom  they  had  met  on  their  road  into  exile, 
the  only  book  permitted  within  the  prison  walls.  He 
ends  by  not  only  submitting  to  his  fate,  but  acknow- 
ledging his  guilt.  This  is  the  second  false  note  in  the 
book. 

By  an  error  of  interpretation  which  indicates  the 
danger  of  the  cryptographic  artifices  forced  on  the  lite- 
rature of  the  country,  the  passages  which  express  this 
sentiment  have  been  taken  by  certain  critics  to  partake 
of  the  nature  of  2, protest.  The  mistake  is  evident.  Dos- 
toievski  sympathises,  that  is  clear,  with  his  fellow-prisoners 
of  every  kind.  He  has  a  sincere  admiration  for  the 
strength  and  brute  energy  of  some  of  these  wretches, 
and  endeavours  to  justify  it  by  dwelling  on  the  qualities 
of  goodness  and  generosity  which  he  has  discovered 
under  their  rough  exterior.  But  this  is  a  mere  echo  of 
the  Romantic  school  and  the  humanitarian  leanings  of 
the  West.  Apart  from  it,  the  book  is  all  submission.  It 
presents  the  feelings  of  a  man  who  not  only  uncomplain- 
ingly accepts  a  punishment  which  is  at  all  events  out 
of  proportion  to  his  offence,  but  who  acknowledges  its 
justice  and  equity.  And  the  whole  of  Dostoievski's  sub- 
sequent attitude  proves  the  fact.  Not  only  did  he  never 
pose  as  a  martyr,  but  he  avoided  all  allusion  to  his  painful 
past,  like  a  man  who  regarded  it  as  nothing  but  a  stain, 
which  had  been  wiped  out  and  redeemed. 

The  subject  of  The  House  of  the  Dead  has  been  re- 
cently taken  up  again  by  Melchine,  in  some  sketches 
which  have  earned  considerable  success. 

Between  1862  and  1866,  Dostoievski  lived  through  a 


342  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

somewhat  difficult  time.  He  made  a  prolonged  stay- 
abroad,  and  did  not  turn  his  first  acquaintance  with 
the  Western  world  to  the  best  advantage.  Whither  do 
my  readers  suppose  that  the  curiosity  of  this  man,  dedi- 
cated twice  over  to  the  service  of  the  ideal  life  by  his 
talent  and  his  suffering,  led  him  ?  The  barbarian  that 
lay  at  the  bottom  of  his  nature,  and  the  grown-up  child 
he  was  always  to  remain,  proved  their  existence  on  this 
occasion.  He  went  to  Baden-Baden  !  and  left  everything 
there,  even  to  his  wife's  clothes  !  Dostoievski  was  an  in- 
corrigible gambler,  and  until  the  period  of  his  second  mar- 
riage, he  was  destined  to  remain  in  constant  and  terrible 
money  straits,  which  even  his  considerable  earnings  were 
not  sufficient  to  remove.  At  Florence  the  first  few 
moments  in  the  Uffizi  Gallery  wearied  him,  and  he  left  it. 
He  spent  his  whole  time  at  the  cafe,  talking  to  a  fellow- 
traveller,  and  reading  Les  Miserables^  which  was  then  just 
appearing.  He  devoured  the  book,  and  memories  of  it 
are  evident  in  Crime  and  Punishment. 

In  1863  he  lost  his  first  wife,  Marie  Dmitrievna  Isaiev, 
who  has  been  identified  with  the  character  of  Natacha 
in  Poor  Folksj  and  a  year  afterwards,  the  death  of  his 
brother  Michael,  which  left  him  alone  in  the  manage- 
ment of  the  Review  they  had  edited  together,  brought 
about  his  ruin.  He  had  no  business  talents  whatever. 
He  had  come  to  the  very  end  of  his  resources,  when 
the  success  of  Crime  and  Punishment ^  in  1866,  lifted  him 
for  a  time  out  of  a  position  which  had  grown  desperate. 

Raskolnikov,  the  student  who  claims  the  right  to 
murder  and  steal  by  virtue  of  his  ill-applied  scientific 
theories,  is  not  a  figure  the  invention  of  which  can  be 
claimed  by  the  Russian  novelist.  It  is  probable  that 
before  or  after  reading  the  works  of  Victor  Hugo,  Dos- 


DOSTOIEVSKI  343 

toi'evski  had  perused  those  of  Bulwer  Lytton.  Eugene 
Aram,  the  EngUsh  noveUst's  hero,  is  a  criminal  of  a  very- 
different  order,  and  of  a  superior  species.  When  he 
commits  his  crime,  he  not  only  thinks,  like  Raskolnikov, 
of  a  rapid  means  of  attaining  fortune,  but  also,  and  more 
nobly,  of  a  great  and  solemn  sacrifice  to  science,  of 
which  he  feels  himself  to  be  the  high-priest.  Like 
Raskolnikov,  he  draws  no  benefit  from  his  booty. 
Like  him,  too,  he  hides  it,  and  like  him,  he  is  pur- 
sued, not  by  remorse,  but  by  regret ; — haunted  by  the 
painful  thought  that  men  now  have  the  advantage  over 
him,  and  that  he  no  longer  stands  above  their  curi- 
osity and  their  spite, — tortured  by  his  consciousness  of 
the  total  change  in  his  relations  with  the  world.  In 
both  cases,  the  subject  and  the  story,  save  for  the  vol- 
untary expiation  at  the  close,  appear  identical  in  their 
essential  lines.  This  feature  stands  apart.  Yet,  properly 
speaking,  it  does  not  belong  to  Dostoievski.  In  Tour- 
gueniev's  The  Tavern  {Postomlyi  Dvor),  the  peasant 
Akime,  whom  his  wife  has  driven  into  crime,  punishes 
himself  by  going  out  to  beg,  in  all  gentleness  and  humble 
submission.  Some  students,  indeed,  have  chosen  to 
transform  both  subject  and  character,  and  have  looked 
on  Raskolnikov  as  a  political  criminal,  disguised  after 
the  same  fashion  as  Dostoievski  himself  may  have  been, 
in  his  Memories  of  the  House  of  the  Dead.  But  this  ver- 
sion appears  to  me  to  arise  out  of  another  error.  A  few 
days  before  the  book  appeared,  a  crime  almost  identical 
with  that  related  in  it,  and  committed  under  the  appa- 
rent influence  of  Nihilist  teaching,  though  without  any 
mixture  of  the  political  element,  took  place  at  St.  Peters- 
burg. These  doctrines,  as  personified  by  Tourgueniev 
in  Bazarov,  are,  in  fact,  general  in  their  scope.  They 
23 


344  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

contain  the  germs  of  every  order  of  criminal  attempt, 
whether  pubHc  or  private  ;  and  Dostoievski's  great  merit 
Hes  in  the  fact  that  he  has  demonstrated  the  Hkelihood 
that  the  development  of  this  germ  in  one  solitary  intelli- 
gence may  foster  a  social  malady.  In  the  domain  of 
social  psychology  and  pathology,  the  great  novelist  owes 
nothing  to  anybody ;  and  his  powers  in  this  direction 
suffice  to  compensate  for  such  imperfections  as  I  shall 
have  to  indicate  in  his  work. 

The  ''  first  cause "  in  this  book,  psychologically 
speaking,  is  that  individualism  which  the  Slavophil 
School  has  chosen  to  erect  into  a  principle  of  the  na- 
tional life  ; — an  unbounded  selfishness,  in  other  words, 
which,  when  crossed  by  circumstances,  takes  refuge  in 
violent  and  monstrous  reaction.  And  indeed,  Raskol- 
nikov,  like  Bazarov,  is  so  full  of  contradictions,  some  of 
them  grossly  improbable,  that  one  is  almost  driven  to 
inquire  whether  the  author  has  not  intended  to  depict  a 
condition  of  madness.  We  see  this  selfish  being  spend- 
ing his  last  coins  to  bury  Marmeladov,  a  drunkard  picked 
up  in  the  street,  whom  he  had  seen  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life  only  a  few  hours  previously.  From  this  pomt 
of  view  Eugene  Aram  has  more  psychological  consis- 
tency, and  a  great  deal  more  moral  dignity.  Raskol- 
nikov  is  nothing  but  a  poor  half-crazed  creature,  soft  in 
temperament,  confused  in  intellect,  who  carries  about  a 
big  idea,  in  a  head  that  is  too  small  to  hold  it.  He  be- 
comes aware  of  this  after  he  has  committed  his  crime, 
when  he  is  haunted  by  hallucinations  and  wild  terrors, 
which  convince  him  that  his  pretension  to  rank  as  a  man 
of  power  was  nothing  but  a  dream.  Then  the  ruling 
idea  which  has  lured  him  to  murder  and  to  theft  gives 
place  to  another, — that  of  confessing  his  crime.     And 


DOSTOIEVSKI  345 

even  here  his  courage  and  frankness  fail  him  ;  he  can- 
not run  a  straight  course,  and,  after  wandering  round 
and  round  the  police  station,  he  carries  his  confession 
to  Sonia. 

This  figure  of  Sonia  is  a  very  ordinary  Russian  type^ 
and  strangely  chosen  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  Ras- 
kolnikov  the  virtue  of  expiation.  She  is  a  woman  of  the 
town,  chaste  in  mind  though  not  in  deed,  and  is  redeemed 
by  one  really  original  feature,  her  absolute  humility  It 
may  be  inquired  whether  this  element  of  moral  redemp- 
tion, in  so  far  as  it  differs  from  those  which  so  constantly 
occur  to  the  imagination  of  the  author  of  Manon  Lescauty 
and  to  that  of  all  Dostoievski's  literary  forerunners,  is 
more  truthful  than  the  rest,  and  w^hether  it  must  not 
be  admitted  that  certain  moral,  like  certain  physical 
conditions,  necessarily  result  in  an  organic  and  quite 
incurable  deformation  of  character.  Sonia  is  like  an 
angel  who  rolls  in  the  gutter  every  night,  and  whitens  her 
wings  each  morning  by  perusing  the  Holy  Gospels.  We 
may  just  as  well  fancy  that  a  coal-heaver  could  straighten 
the  back  bowed  by  the  weight  of  countless  sacks  of  char- 
coal by  practising  Swedish  gymnastics ! 

The  author's  power  of  evocation,  and  his  gift  for 
analysing  feeling,  and  the  impressions  which  produce  it, 
are  very  great,  and  the  effects  of  terror  and  compassion 
he  obtains  cannot  be  denied.  Yet,  whether  from  the 
artistic  or  from  the  scientific  point  of  view  (since  some 
of  his  admirers  insist  on  this  last),  his  method  is  open 
to  numerous  objections.  It  consists  in  reproducing,  or 
very  nearly,  the  conditions  of  ordinary  life  whereby  we 
gain  acquaintance  with  a  particular  character.  There- 
fore, without  taking  the  trouble  of  telling  us  who  Ras- 
kolnikov  is,  and  in  what  his  qualities  consist,  the  story 


346  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

relates  a  thousand  little  incidents  out  of  which  the  per- 
sonal individuality  of  the  hero  is  gradually  evolved.  And 
as  these  incidents  do  not  necessarily  present  themselves, 
in  real  life,  in  any  logical  sequence,  beginning  with  the 
most  instructive  of  the  series,  the  novelist  does  not  attempt 
to  follow  any  such  course.  As  early  as  on  the  second 
page  of  the  book,  we  learn  that  Raskolnikov  is  making 
up  his  mind  to  murder  an  old  woman  who  lends  out 
money,  and  it  is  only  at  the  close  of  the  volume  that  we 
become  aware  of  the  additional  fact  that  he  has  published 
a  review  article^  in  which  he  has  endeavoured  to  set  forth 
a  theory  justifying  this  hideous  design. 

Apart  from  the  weariness  and  the  mental  effort  in- 
volved in  this  method,  the  picture  it  produces  is  naturally 
somewhat  confused.  It  has  another  fault,  which  is  shared 
by  the  majority  of  Russian  novelists.  Their  art  resembles 
the  architectural  style  affected  by  the  builder  of  the  church 
of  St.  Basil,  at  Moscow.  The  visitor  to  this  church  is  as- 
tonished to  see  five  or  six  edifices  interlaced  one  with  the 
other.  There  are  at  least  as  many  distinct  stories  in  Crime 
and  Punishment,  all  connected  by  a  barely  perceptible 
thread.  But  this  peculiarity  is  not  exclusively  national,  and 
I  should  be  inclined  to  ascribe  responsibility  for  it  to  the 
English  school.  Observe  George  ^Xioi's  Daniel Deronda, 
To  conclude,  all  Dostoievski's  literary  work  bears  traces 
of  the  method  invariably  employed  by  him,  except  in  Poor 
Folks  and  some  chapters  of  The  House  of  the  Dead.  This 
is  the  method  of  the  feuilletonist,  who  writes  copy  at  his 
utmost  speed.  Even  in  the  present  day,  the  line  so  clearly 
drawn  in  France  between  the  artistic  novel  and  that  other 
— the  sole  object  of  whose  existence  is  to  attract  and 
keep  up  the  number  of  general  subscribers  to  widely  cir- 
culated newspapers — cannot  be  said  to  exist  in  Slav  coun- 


DOSTOlEVSKI  347 

tries.  Dostoievski,  who  was  always  short  of  money,  and 
always  behind  with  his  copy,  looked  about  at  last  for  a 
shorthand  writer,  to  help  him  to  expedite  matters.  A 
young  girl,  Anna  Grigorevna  Svitkine,  was  recommended 
to  him,  and  before  long  he  made  her  his  second  wife. 
His  urgent  desire  to  keep  up  constant  communication 
with  the  public,  and  his  ambition  to  preserve  his  influence 
over  it,  drove  him  into  a  feverish  productiveness  which 
wore  down  his  talent  and  his  life.  These  drawbacks  are 
evident  in  Crime  and  Punishment.  Compare  the  two 
descriptions  of  Sonia  in  the  beginning  of  the  book ;  on 
the  first  occasion  we  think  her  pretty — on  the  second,  she 
has  grown  plain. 

And  things  grow  worse  in  Dostoievski's  subsequent 
works,  The  Idiot  (1868),  The  Possessed  {i%']'^)y  and  more 
especially  in  The  Brothers  Karamazov.  The  first  book  bears 
traces  of  the  influence  of  Tolstoi",  and  contains  a  somewhat 
singular  application  of  the  gospel  preached  by  the  prophet 
of  lasnaia  Poliana,  and  of  the  words  of  the  Master,  ^'Be  ye 
even  as  little  children  ! "  The  theory  put  forward  in  The 
Idiot  is,  that  a  brain  in  which  some  of  those  springs  which 
we  consider  essential,  and  which  only  serve  us  for  doing 
evil,  are  weakened,  may  yet  remain  superior,  both  intel- 
lectually and  morally,  to  others  less  affected.  To  prove 
his  case,  Dostoievski  depicts,  in  the  person  of  Prince 
Muichkine,  a  type  closely  resembling  that  of  the  beings 
known  in'  country  places  as  ''Naturals,"  placed  con- 
siderably higher  in  the  social  scale,  and  scientifically 
reconstructed  on  a  physiological  basis.  The  Idiot — and 
there  is  a  curious  autobiographical  touch  about  this — is 
an  epileptic.  Here  we  have  some  elements  of  a  serious 
problem,  the  normality  of  the  phenomena  of  madness, 
and  their  classification  in  the  order  of  the  phenomena  of 


348  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

passion  ;  but  we  have  also,  and  more  especially,  a  great 
deal  of  childish  trifling,  and  of  those  ^^  psychological 
mole-runs"  of  which  Tourgueniev  has  spoken,  and  in 
which  Dostoievski's  fancy  revelled. 

The  Possessed  is  an  answer  to  Tourguen lev's  Fathers 
and  Children^  and  that  writer,  together  with  Granovski 
and  some  other  representatives  of  Occidentalism,  is  de- 
picted, and  turned  into  ridicule,  in  its  pages.  Dostoievski 
could  not  console  himself  for  having  been  outstripped 
in  the  general  interpretation  of  a  social  phenomenon 
such  as  Nihilism,  of  which  his  Raskolnikov  had  only  been 
a  partial,  and  a  partially  comprehended  picture.  He 
cannot  be  said  to  have  entirely  succeeded  in  the  retalia- 
tion at  which  he  aimed.  Stavroguine,  the  principal  hero 
of  his  novel,  who  turns  revolutionist  out  of  sheer  idle- 
ness, is  an  archaic,  and  by  no  means  a  specifically  Russian 
type.  He  is  enigmatic  and  confusing,  strongly  tinged 
with  Romantic  features,  which  the  author  seems  to  have 
borrowed  from  every  quarter — from  Byron's  Corsair^ 
from  Victor  Hugo's  Hernaniy  and  from  the  aristocratic 
demagogues  of  George  Sand,  Eugene  Sue,  Charles  Gutz- 
kow,  and  Spielhagen. 

The  story  is  excessively  complicated,  and  its  close  is 
extravagantly  melodramatic.  But  Dostoievski  has  con- 
trived to  see,  and  bring  out,  the  essential  feature  which 
escaped  Tourgueniev,  I  mean  the  element  which  has  con- 
stituted the  strength  of  active  Nihilism.  By  showing 
that  this  lies,  not  in  the  vague,  confused,  and  ineffective 
ideas  of  a  handful  of  ill-balanced  brains,  nor  in  the  ficti- 
tious or  incoherent  organisation  of  an  unstable  political 
party,  but  in  the  paroxysmal  tension  of  a  band  of  exas- 
perated wills,  he  has  done  real  service  to  the  cause  of 
history. 


DOSTOIEVSKI  349 

The  Brothers  Karamazov  is  a  work  that  strongly 
resembles  an  edifice  of  which  nothing  but  the  facade  has 
ever  been  built.  The  plan  of  this  book  had  occurred  to 
the  author  as  early  as  1870,  during  a  residence  of  some 
months  at  Dresden.  It  was  to  have  consisted  of  five 
parts,  and,  under  quite  a  different  title — The  Life  of  a 
Great  Sinner — it  was  to  have  represented  the  existence 
of  several  generations  following  on  that  of  Tchadaiev. 
War  and  Peace  had  just  appeared,  and  this  time,  Dostoi- 
evski  had  to  compete  with  Tolstoi".  He  finally  reduced 
the  five  parts  to  two,  and  never  finished  but  the  first, 
which  in  itself  consists  of  four  thick  volumes.  In  these 
he  has  endeavoured  to  depict  the  intellectual  progress  of 
'^the  Sixties,"  with  all  its  excitement  and  its  revolutionary 
idealism.  The  two  elder  brothers  are  intended  as  a  sym- 
bolical personification  of  the  two  morbid  phenomena 
which  marked  this  crisis — a  sick  will,  as  exemplified  in 
Dmitri,  a  man  without  morality  ;  and  a  sick  mind,  in  the 
case  of  Ivan,  whose  brain  is  deranged.  The  third  brother, 
Aliocha — believed  to  be  a  portrait  of  the  philosopher 
Soloviov,  to  whom  I  shall  later  refer — is  the  symbol  of 
the  healthy  Russian,  who  through  love,  and  through  his 
national  faith,  escapes  mental  bankruptcy  and  moral 
perversion  ;  he  is  a  creature  of  unfailing  gentleness  and 
indulgent  goodness.  Some  readers  (Dostoievski  has  with- 
held all  personal  information)  have  thought  they  recog- 
nised, in  the  two  elder  brothers,  a  twofold  representation 
of  Russia  Europeanised  and  Russia  uncultured,  and  in 
the  third,  the  picture  of  the  Russia  of  the  future,  when 
she  shall  have  harmonised  the  elements  of  her  national 
culture  with  the  humanitarian  ideas  borrowed  from  the 
West.  But  this  idea  was  not  to  take  clear  shape  until 
the  second  part  of  the  work  was  reached.     In  the  first 


3  50  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

part,  the  figure  of  Aliocha  still  remains  in  the  background, 
and  the  interpreter  of  the  philosophical,  religious,  and 
social  ideas  preached  by  the  author  is  Zosima,  a  monk 
belonging  to  the  monastery  in  which  Aliocha  spends  his 
novitiate.  Now  Zosima's  desire  is  that  the  novice  should 
begin  by  a  preliminary  experience  of  the  world,  and  to 
this  end,  he  advises  him  to  marry.  Here  we  perceive  in 
the  author's  mind  the  fundamental  principle  of  his  teach- 
ing— the  freedom  of  the  moral  and  religious  man,  in  his 
effort  to  reach  personal  perfection. 

I  do  not  claim  any  great  clearness  for  this  exegetical 
attempt  of  my  own.  My  readers  must  excuse  me.  I 
know  but  little  of  mysticism,  and  it  would  surprise  me 
very  much  if  any  one  could  prove  that  Dostoievski's 
own  views  on  the  matter  were  very  clear.  Perhaps,  if 
he  had  reached  the  second  part  of  his  book,  and  could 
have  entered  the  seventh  heaven  with  Aliocha,  he  might 
have  found  means  to  enlighten  us  further.  But  in  this 
first  part  we  are  left  in  hell — a  Dantesque  hell,  where 
concentric  circles  mark  the  various  maladies  of  soul 
and  mind,  which  struggle  before  the  gates  of  the  Paradise 
whereof  Aliocha  holds  the  key.  Instances  of  moral  per- 
version admit  of  a  remedy,  and  a  hopeful  one — the 
humble  acceptance  of  a  chastisement  which  may  be 
unjustly  applied,  but  which  has  been  earned  by  the 
crime  of  a  whole  life  spent  in  debauchery.  This  is  the 
fate  of  Dmitri,  who  is  falsely  accused  of  parricide  and 
sentenced.  In  the  case  of  mental  maladies,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  words  lasciate  ogni  speranza  are  written  in 
letters  of  fire.  These  infect  the  very  conscience,  and  so 
block  the  way  to  salvation.  Thus  Ivan,  who  is,  intellectu- 
ally speaking,  the  accomplice  of  the  crime  of  which  Dmitri 
is  to  pay  the  penalty,  appears  far  more  guilty  than  he. 


DOSTOIEVSKI  351 

The  book  contains  an  immense  wealth  of  psychical 
ideas.  It  is  a  complete  symphony,  which  touches  every 
chord  of  the  human  soul,  and  a  most  invaluable  treasury 
of  information  concerning  the  contemporary  life  of  Russia, 
moral,  intellectual,  and  social.  But  I  doubt  whether 
this  treasure  may  be  accessible  to  the  average  European 
reader.  Dostoievski  himself  was  conscious  of  the  lack 
of  measure  and  proportion  which,  from  the  very  outset, 
endangered  the  balance  of  his  work.  Nevertheless,  in 
the  legendary  episode  of  the  Inquisitor,  it  contains  what 
are  probably  the  most  powerful  pages  hitherto  penned 
by  any  Russian  author.  Amidst  philosophical  and  reli- 
gious discussions  saturated  with  the  true  Byzantine 
spirit,  endless,  complicated,  full  of  quibbles  and  splitting 
of  hairs,  we  come  upon  a  Spanish  Inquisitor,  who  has 
just  given  orders  for  an  auto-da-fe^  when  Christ  comes 
back  to  earth  for  the  second  time.  The  crowd  on  the 
public  square,  where  the  stake  has  been  erected,  recog- 
nises the  gentle  Prophet.  He  is  surrounded  and  acclaimed. 
The  Inquisitor  causes  Him  to  be  arrested,  and  goes  to 
see  Him  in  His  prison.  In  imperious  language  he  re- 
proaches Him  with  having  left  His  disciples  a  precept 
which  it  is  impossible  to  practise.  ^^Thou  camest  here 
with  empty  hands  !  Thou  wouldst  have  none  of  Satan's 
offers  to  turn  the  stones  into  bread  !  Thou  hast  claimed 
to  govern  men  by  love  alone  !  Behold  whither  this  has 
led  them,  and  led  us  too  !  They  scoff  at  love  and  cry  for 
bread ;  we  give  them  bread,  and  they  accept  our  chains. 
To-morrow  I  will  have  Thee  burnt  !  Dixi."  Only  one 
answer  does  the  Christ  vouchsafe  the  merciless  priest. 
He  offers  him  His  own  pale  lips,  and  the  Inquisitor, 
opening  the  dungeon  door,  cries  out,  *'  Go  Thy  way,  and 
never  come  back  here — never  ! " 


352  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Thanks  to  his  second  wife,  who,  though  devoid 
of  any  superior  education,  admirably  understood  her 
duties  in  Hfe,  and  played  the  part  of  a  real  providence  to 
the  careless  writer,  Dostoievski's  closing  years  were  rela- 
tively happy.  He  paid  his  debts,  and  enjoyed  a  com- 
fortable home.  At  the  same  time,  through  his  periodical 
publications  oi  An  Author s  Note-Book  (1873),  and  also 
by  his  contributions  to  Prince  Mechtcherski's  Grajdanine 
{The  Citizen),  he  wielded  considerable  influence.  The 
success  of  a  speech  he  delivered  in  1880,  on  the  occa- 
sion of  the  raising  of  a  monument  to  Pouchkine, 
reached  the  proportions  of  an  apotheosis.  Since  his 
return  from  Siberia,  the  author  of  The  House  of  the  Dead 
had  been  alternately  classed  as  a  Conservative  and  as  a 
Slavophil.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  democratic  leanings 
parted  him  from  the  first,  and  the  complete  absence,  in 
connection  with  his  literary  creations,  of  any  historio- 
sophical  element  and  any  regard  for  idealism,  from  the 
second.  He  made  no  attempt  to  endue  the  Russian 
with  any  beauty  ;  he  loved  him,  without  claiming  lovable 
qualities  for  him,  not  for  his  way  of  life,  which  he  held 
reprehensible  in  many  respects,  but  for  a  nature  which 
he  believed  susceptible  of  something  like  perfection, 
capable,  above  all  things,  of  forgiveness  as  of  repentance, 
and  thus  rising  to  a  moral  dignity  which  the  sordidness 
of  his  material  existence  could  not  affect. 

In  the  speech  to  which  I  have  referred,  this  idea  was 
eloquently  expressed,  and  Dostoievski  added  some  novel 
ideas  which  seem  to  have  been  inspired  by  his  enjoyment 
of  a  budding  popularity  ;  for  they  bear  a  close  resem- 
blance to  bets  on  probabilities,  and  are  in  contradiction 
with  some  of  his  own  most  frequently  expressed  opinions. 
One  of  these  paradoxes  consists  in  the  claim  to  moral 


DOSTOlEVSKI  353 

superiority,  based  on  the  humility  and  gentleness  of  the 
Russian  race.  I  have  already  set  forth,  in  the  earlier 
pages  of  this  book,  my  views  as  to  the  effect  of  the 
historical,  social,  and  climatic  conditions  of  the  national 
development  on  the  contradictory  elements  of  a  tempera- 
ment still  in  course  of  formation.  The  new  '^  elect 
nation,"  called  to  realise  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth, — 
because  she  does  not  isolate  herself  proudly  within  her- 
self, because  she  is  disposed  to  see  a  brother  in  every 
foreigner,  and  an  unfortunate,  rather  than  a  malefactor, 
in  the  greatest  criminal,  because  she  alone  incarnates 
the  Christian  idea  of  love  and  forgiveness, — the  heiress 
presumptive  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  as  described  in  Dos- 
toievski's  speech,  simply  belongs  to  that  cycle  of  Messi- 
anic ideas  in  which  the  theory  of  Panslavism  has  become 
finally  merged.  Yet  on  one  point  the  orator  accentuated 
his  disagreement  with  the  Slavophils,  by  extolling  that 
national  gift  for  assimilating  foreign  culture  whereby  the 
Russian  had  succeeded,  or  was  to  succeed,  in  realising 
that  type  of  the  Vsietcheloviek  (universal  man),  \vho  has 
since  become  the  object  of  a  good  deal  of  joke,  but 
who,  at  that  moment,  thanks  to  Dostoievski's  burning 
words,  evoked  a  transport  of  enthusiasm.  This  was 
shared  even  by  the  Slavophils  themselves,  who  forgave 
the  orator's  lapse  from  the  common  creed,  for  the  sake 
of  the  share  attributed  to  the  Orthodox  Faith  in  his 
conception  of  the  mighty  destiny  the  nation  w^as  yet  to 
attain. 

Ivan  Karamazov,  the  martyr  of  doubt,  would,  how- 
ever, seem  to  have  originally  represented  some  conscious 
internal  experiences  of  the  author's  own.  There  is 
something  doubtful  about  the  orthodoxy  of  the  legend 
of    the    Inquisitor,    and   there    is   something   still    more 


3  54  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

expressive,  in  this  connection,  in  the  dialogue  in  The 
Possessedj  when  Chatov  asks  Stavroguine  whether  he 
beHeves  in  God. 

"  /  believe  in  Russia  ;  I  believe  in  the  Orthodox  Church. 
.  .  .  /  believe  in  the  Body  of  Christ.  .  .  .  /  believe  that 
Christ's  second  coming  will  be  to  Russia.  .  .  , 

^^ But  in  God — in  God? 

^' I  .  .  .  I  will  believe  in  God  as  well  f^'' 

At  bottom,  the  Pravoslavie  (Orthodox  Faith)  seems 
to  have  been  chiefly  valuable,  in  Dostoievski's  eyes,  as  an 
element  of  the  national  consistency.  Chatov  says  this 
clearly  :  ^'  There  is  no  great  historical  people  which  does 
not  possess  a  National  GodJ'  But  it  is  quite  certain  that 
either  before  or  after  his  residence  in  The  House  of  the 
Deady  the  novelist  had  absolutely  broken  with  the  intel- 
lectual Sturm  und  Drang  of  "  the  Sixties  "  and  its  accom- 
panying materialism. 

There  was  but  one  bond  of  union  between  him  and 
the  revolutionaries  of  his  period — a  desire  to  find  some 
new  truth,  apart  from  the  old  tradition.  This  truth  Dos- 
toievski  claimed  to  discover  in  external  forms  and  social 
habits,  and  thus  it  was  that  in  his  eyes,  as  in  those  of 
Tolstoi,  a  public  courtesan  was  capable  of  moral  supe- 
riority over  a  woman  whose  conduct,  as  regarded  all 
her  external  duties,  was  irreproachable.  Raskolnikov, 
Sonia,  Dmitri,  and  the  convicts  of  The  House  of  the  Dead, 
exemplify  almost  every  variety  of  vice  or  crime ;  yet 
they  are  all  dear  to  the  author.  All  his  hatred  is  con- 
centrated on  individual  pride,  presumption,  and  false- 
hood. And  even  these  he  is  willing  to  pardon.  He 
forgives  every  one.  He  nearly  forgives  Smierdiakov, 
the  real  parricide.  And  all  this  plenary  indulgence  con- 
stitutes his  real  teaching,  a  new  gospel,  almost  reduced 


DEATH    OF   DOSTOIEVSKI  355 

to  the  three  parables  of  the  Repentant  Thief,  the  Prodi- 
gal Son,  and  the  Woman  taken  in  adultery. 

The  speech  which  made  so  much  sensation  was 
published  in  the  penultimate  number  oi  An  Authors 
Note- Book,  The  last  appeared  in  January  1881,  on  the 
very  day  of  the  great  writer's  public  funeral.  For  a 
considerable  time  previously,  his  existence  had  been  that 
of  a  bundle  of  nerves  in  a  condition  of  ceaseless  excite- 
ment, supporting  a  body  worn  out  by  perpetual  over- 
work. The  end  came  in  the  shape  of  a  sudden  and  fatal 
stroke.  The  students  of  St.  Petersburg  desired  to  carry 
his  convict  chains  behind  his  coffin.  Nihilist  attempts 
were  at"  that  period  very  numerous.  Only  a  month  later, 
one  of  them  was  to  cost  the  sovereign  his  life,  and  Loris 
Melikov's  experiment  in  liberal  government  was  just  at 
its  height.  He  had  sufficient  good  sense  to  forbid  the 
republication  of  a  page  of  the  author's  life  which  his  own 
hand  had  torn  out.  Nevertheless,  by  a  kind  of  ironical 
contradiction,  his  burial  was  the  occasion  for  a  sort  of 
review  of  the  revolutionary  army,  which  there  displayed 
its  strength,  in  preparation  for  the  attempt  which  was 
soon  to  manifest  its  power,  and  prepare  its  ruin. 

Dostoievski's  career  may  be  divided,  as  regards  his 
intellectual  development,  into  two  very  distinct  stages. 
Up  till  1865,  w^e  have  a  period  of  progress  and  analysis, 
generally  in  accord  with  the  intellectual  movement  of 
^^  the  Forties."  After  1865,  we  have  a  period  of  retro- 
gression, and  of  controversial  struggle  with  that  very 
movement.  From  this  point  of  view,  the  Memories  of  the 
House  of  the  Dead  occupy  a  special  position.  To  begin 
v/ith,  they  are  much  simpler  in  form  than  the  rest  of  the 
great  author's  work,  and  in  substance,  they  are  free  from 
any  doctrinarianism  whatsoever.     The  idea  put  forward 


3  56  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

by  the  author  in  later  days,  that  the  convict  prison  may 
become  an  instrument  of  moral  amendment,  finds  no 
place  in  them  whatsoever.  Quite  on  the  contrary,  Dos- 
toievski  notes  the  absence  of  a  trace  of  repentance  in  any 
of  the  prisoners.  He  even  positively  asserts  that  the 
prison  is  not  calculated  to  improve  them.  This  fact  is 
susceptible  of  explanation.  The  book  was  written  be- 
fore the  author  came  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  was  there 
influenced  by  a  group  of  Slavophils,  which  attracted, 
though,  as  I  have  already  mentioned,  it  never  entirely 
absorbed  him.  He  joined  it  in  the  endeavour  to  dis- 
cover the  renovation  of  the  Russian  by  ^^  national  means," 
but  he  parted  from  it  when  he  sought  the  elements  of 
this  renovation — not  in  the  traditions  of  the  past  and  the 
external  forms  of  existence,  habits,  customs,  and  dress, 
but  in  the  national  soul,  the  purity  and  clearness  of 
which  he  recognised  under  the  coating  of  filth  and  the 
curtain  of  ignorance  with  which  past  centuries  had  veiled 
it.  Yet  in  Dostoievski  and  the  Slavophils  and  Tolstoi  one 
common  feature  does  exist.  I  refer  to  their  repudiation 
of  Western  civilisation  as  the  one  necessary  principle  which 
must  rule  the  development  of  the  national  culture,  and 
their  appeal  to  the  faith  of  the  popular  masses  as  the 
indispensable  complement  of  that  development.  On 
these  lines  Tolstoi  has  reached  an  evangelical  theory  of 
non-resistance  to  evil,  and  Dostoievski  an  evangelical 
theory  of  atonement  and  rehabilitation  through  suffer- 
ing. But  at  this  point  their  roads  were  to  part.  By 
virtue  of  one  portion  of  this  doctrine — and  one  which, 
as  we  know,  admits  of  a  good  deal  of  contradiction — 
Tolstoi  is  an  individualist,  whose  supreme  object  is  to 
bring  his  inner  man  to  a  state  of  perfection.  If  reasons 
of    State    are    an    obstacle    in    the    way   of    this    attain- 


DOSTOl'EVSKI  357 

ment,  he  declares  himself  ready  to  abolish  the  State. 
Dostoievski  is  a  thorough  Communist.  He  cares  little 
for  individual  liberty  and  individual  perfection,  and  is 
quite  ready  to  sacrifice  both  on  the  altar  of  that  humani- 
tarian idea  which,  in  his  mind,  Russia,  ^Hhe  elect  nation," 
has  been  called  to  realise.  This  point  of  view  is  dia- 
metrically opposed  to  that  of  Tolstoi' ;  yet,  unlike  the 
Slavophils,  with  whom,  in  this  respect,  he  would  otherwise 
seem  to  agree,  Dostoievski  feels  neither  scorn  nor  hatred 
for  the  West.  His  desire  is  to  reconcile  the  two  prin- 
ciples, the  Western  and  the  Eastern,  and  he  holds  it 
Russia's  mission  to  carry  out  the  compromise ;  and, 
unlike  his  latest  friends,  he  believes  in  the  early  and 
almost  immediate  accomplishment  of  his  dream.  The 
idea  appears  both  in  the  Notice  which  preceded  the 
publication  of  The  Times  in  1861,  and  in  the  speech 
delivered  in  1880. 

This  constant  anxiety  to  discover  a  ^^ national  soul" 
in  the  moral  distresses  and  dark  places  of  ordinary 
existence,  has  caused  Dostoievski  to  become,  above  all 
things,  an  analyser  of  the  human  conscience.  His 
novels  contain  but  few  descriptions  of  the  external  things 
of  this  world,  and  such  as  do  exist  are  generally  some- 
what unreal ;  as  in  that  scene  in  The  Idiot,  in  which 
Prince  Muichkine  sees  his  country  house  surrounded  by 
strangers,  who  insult  him.  Except  in  matters  of  psy- 
chology, Dostoievski  is  nothing  of  a  realist.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  belongs  to  the  Romantic  school  by  his 
predilection  for  excessive  and  exceptional  situations,  and 
yet  more  by  his  incessant  subjectiveness,  which  leads 
him  to  perpetually  bring  his  own  personality  forward, 
even  as  an  object  of  medical  observation.  Vainly  did 
his  doctors  entreat  him  not  to  allow  his  mind  to  dwell 


3  58  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

on  his  periodical  attacks  of  epilepsy  !  He  regarded  him- 
self as  an  absolute  and  essentially  objective  realist,  for 
if  he  drew  everything  from  his  own  case,  that  surely 
was  a  reality  1  He  considered  that  the  phenomena  of 
moral  degradation  and  depravation,  which  he  delighted 
to  analyse,  existed  in  his  own  person,  and  this  in  virtue 
of  the  principle  he  was  constantly  proclaiming — that 
every  man  has  something  of  the  murderer  in  him ;  and 
he  was  just  as  convinced  that  every  man  was  at  heart  a 
ruffian  or  a  thief.  ^^  These  phenomena,"  he  would  say, 
"are  of  exceedingly  common  occurrence,  only  we  pay 
no  attention  to  them."  This  theory  has  recently  been 
reproduced  by  Octave  Mirbeau  in  Le  Jar  din  des  Supplices, 
In  Dostoievski's  case  it  was  connected,  as  in  that  of 
Nekrassov,  with  his  own  need  of  personal  confession, 
and  his  taste  for  playing  on  his  readers'  nerves.  He 
always  declared  that  his  sensation  during  the  paroxysms 
of  his  terrible  complaint  was  that  of  a  great  criminal 
enduring  the  chastisement  due  to  some  fault. 

To  sum  him  up,  he  was  a  man  subject  to  semi-hallu- 
cinations, with  a  marvellous  power  of  lucid  observa- 
tion of  mental  complaints,  and  a  wonderful  inspiration, 
which  made  him  the  true  poet  of  "  the  fever  of  the 
mind."  Most  of  his  chief  characters  are  seers.  Aliocha 
Karamazov  can  read  men's  souls  and  discover  hidden 
objects.  Zosima,  the  monk,  foreseeing  that  Dimitri  will  be 
accused  of  the  most  horrible  of  crimes,  and  moved  by  a 
feeling  of  Christian  mysticism,  bends  the  knee  before  him, 
as  being  the  most  guilty,  and  therefore  destined  to  be- 
come the  instrument  of  moral  cure  in  the  case  of  his  own 
brothers.  M.  Tchij,  the  well-known  psychological  expert, 
has  indeed  admitted  that  quite  one-fourth  of  these  char- 
acters are  simply  madmen,  and  on  this  account  he  extols 


DOSTOIEVSKI  359 

the  knowledge  or  intuition  displayed  by  the  author  ; 
while  in  a  lecture  delivered  in  1881  before  the  Society 
of  Jurists  of  the  St.  Petersburg  University,  one  of  the 
most  distinguished  of  Russian  criminalists,  M.  Koni, 
claimed  him  as  a  comrade. 

Dostoievski,  the  child  of  the  city  and  of  the  prole- 
tariat, is  less  of  an  artist  than  the  majority  of  his  rivals, 
who  were  most  of  them  connected  with  the  provincial 
nobility.  His  workmanship  is  slack.  Nothing  delicate 
nor  highly  finished  comes  from  his  pen.  His  style  is 
as  confused  as  his  cast  of  face — "  masque  de  faubourieriy* 
as  it  would  be  called  in  France — roughly  hewn,  clever, 
vigorous,  full  of  projections  and  folds,  of  lumps  and 
hollows.  One  significant  feature  there  is  about  his  whole 
work  :  you  will  not  find  a  single  attractive  female  figure 
in  it.  His  rivals  all  delight  in  depicting  feminine  beauty, 
physical  and  moral.  Tourgueniev's  women  are  perhaps 
the  more  energetic,  Tolstoi's  the  more  graceful ;  but  in 
Dostoievski's  case  all  the  w^omen  are  coarse,  if  they 
are  of  strong  temperament,  and  inconsistent,  if  they  are 
gentle.  He  only  excels  in  figures  of  young  girls,  such  as 
Nelly  in  The  Humiliated  and  the  Injuredy  and  Lisa  in  The 
Brothers  Karamazov.  And  further,  his  mania  for  analy- 
sis leads  him  into  dubious  allusions  to  the  precocious 
awakening  of  the  sexual  instinct  in  these  young  creatures, 
which  betoken  a  touch  of  unhealthy  thought,  to  which 
Tourgueniev,  who  had  no  affection  for  the  author  of 
Crime  and  Punishment y  has  alluded  in  his  correspondence. 

But  for  all  his  prolixity  and  incoherence,  Dostoievski 
was  a  very  great  WTiter  ;  he  had  a  noble  mind,  in  spite  of 
his  hallucinations  ;  and  a  proud  spirit,  although  he  did 
not  succeed  in  realising  or  maintaining  the  idea  of  a  cer- 
tain kind  of  pride  which  is  indispensable  to  every  one, 
24 


36o  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

and  certain  rebellions  which  are  always  legitimate.  In 
the  whole  field  of  contemporary  literature  there  is  only 
one  man,  Tolstoi",  who  stands  a  step  above  him. 


Tolstoi. 

The  master  of  lasnaia  Poliana  has  been  frequently 
likened  to  a  mighty  oak,  which  stands  alone  in  the  midst 
of  the  field  of  literature,  and  towers  above  all  his  fellows. 
This  picture  does  not  strike  me  as  being  entirely  correct, 
and  I  shall  endeavour  to  prove  that  the  tree,  majestic 
though  it  be,  has  drawn  its  sap  from  the  same  soil  as  its 
neighbours,  and  that  its  boughs  touch  the  adjacent  foliage. 
I  cannot,  indeed,  give  any  complete  judgment  of  a  life- 
work  which  is  not  yet  completed,  which,  even  as  I  write, 
is  in  course  of  increase,  which  commands  universal  ad- 
miration by  means  of  its  last  creation,  and  which,  in 
certain  respects,  it  is  not  my  province  to  appraise.  I  shall 
divide  it  into  three  parts,  and  shall  separate  the  artist 
from  the  thinker  and  the  man  of  learning.  The  artist  is 
one  of  the  greatest  who  has  ever  appeared.  To  my  mind, 
nothing  can  be  found  in  any  literature,  whether  as  regards 
truth,  charm,  or  intensity  of  restrained  emotion,  superior 
to  certain  of  his  pages,  even  to  some  in  that  Resurrectiotty 
the  perusal  of  which  we  have  not  yet  been  able  to  con- 
clude. As  long  as  men  live  on  this  earth,  admiration 
must,  I  believe,  be  felt  for  the  description  of  that  Easter 
Mass  during  which  Katioucha  appears  beside  Nekhliou- 
dov,  and  the  exquisite  simplicity  of  the  scenes  of  love  and 
disappointment  which  follow  on  it.  The  thinker  pos- 
sesses great  ingenuity,  and,  above  all,  great  ingenuous- 
ness. He  makes  his  entry  into  the  world  of  thought 
with  the  air  of  a  conquistador  who  discovers  the  wonders 


TOLSTOI  361 

of   Mexico^    and   sometimes — too  often — like   a   Vandal 
rushing  over  the  plains  of  Rome, 

It  is  curious  that  this  last  impression  should  be  more 
particularly  produced  by  his  book  on  art.  From  its 
first  page  to  its  last,  the  author  appears  to  be  a  simple- 
minded  barbarian,  engaged  in  sacking  a  gorgeous  palace 
and  throwing  his  booty  hither  and  thither.  He  has  no 
suspicion  that  his  views  on  the  social  part  to  be  played 
by  art  are  a  mere  reproduction  of  the  theories  already 
put  forward  by  Guyau,  a  French  writer  with  whom  he 
believes  himself  to  be  acquainted,  and  w^hose  ideas  he 
merely  disfigures  with  his  own  paradoxical  fancies. 
He  does  not  realise  that  his  own  definition,  according 
to  which  the  object  of  the  work  of  art  is  to  awake*^ 
identical  or  similar  sentiments  amongst  men  in  general, 
is  as  old  as  art  itself, — though  it  has  never  been  applied 
except  to  those  arts  which  the  Greeks  denominated 
^'  musical,"  and  in  which  they  included  poetry, — and  never 
could,  on  account  of  the  partially  utilitarian  functions 
which  have  devolved  on  them,  be  applied  to  the  plastic 
arts,  such  as  architecture  and  poetry.  He  does  not  realise 
that  the  mission  he  ascribes  to  art,  that  of  realising  the  fra-  - 
ternal  union  of  the  human  race,  has  been  the  watchword 
of  a  whole  century  of  French  literature,  from  Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau  down  to  Victor  Hugo.  He  does  not  realise 
that  his  conception  of  art,  as  a  means  of  communion 
between  men  bound  by  the  same  feelings,  may  be  just 
as  well  applied  to  religion,  to  morality,  to  science,  to 
every  form  of  action  which  has  any  social  effect. 

Face  to  face  with  a  mighty  problem  which,  so  he 
assures  us,  has  claimed  his  attention  and  occupied  his 
wakeful  hours  for  fifteen  years,  Tolstoi  scarcely  touches 
the  historical  side  of  the  question,  yields  to  the  tempta- 


362  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

tion  of  telling  us  the  story  (and  wonderfully  he  tells  it) 
of  the  impression  made  on  him  by  a  rehearsal  of  a  play 
in  the  Moscow  theatre,  and  then  wastes  his  time  in  dis- 
cussing the  fancies  of  Papus  or  of  the  Sar  Peladan, 
authors  whom  he  confuses  in  an  equal  admiration  (or 
scorn)  with  Taine  or  Proudhon,  just  as  he  confuses,  all 
in  one  great  anathema,  Greek  art,  which  he  calls  coarse ; 
Michael  Angelo's,  which  he  regards  as  senseless  ;  Shake- 
speare's, Beethoven's,  and  Wagner's,  which  he  describes 
as  foolishness,  with  the  whims  and  fancies  of  the  decadents. 
If  sincerity  is  to  be  accepted  as  an  excuse  in  such  matters, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  concerning  his.  He  does  not 
refuse  to  apply  the  artistic  criterion  he  himself  has  in- 
vented to  his  own  master-pieces.  This  criterion  is  either 
the  power  of  the  masses  to  comprehend  works  of  art — 
that  is  to  say,  the  glorification  of  the  Epinal  painted 
statuette — or,  occasionally,  some  individual  and  accidental 
impression.  Returning  one  day  in  low  spirits  from  a 
country  walk,  his  sadness  is  broken  by  a  chorus  of 
peasant  women  singing  (out  of  tune)  before  the  balcony 
of  his  house.  This  he  at  once  pronounces  to  be  art ! 
A  m^oment  afterwards,  a  first-rate  executant  performs  a 
sonata  by  Beethoven,  and  is  so  unlucky  as  to  keep  the 
author  waiting  when  he  desires  to  go  to  rest.  This,  he 
declares,  is  not  art  !  The  moujiks  of  lasnaia  Poliana 
understood  nothing  of  the  beauties  of  Anna  Karenina,  and 
forthwith  he  declares  the  book  is  rubbish,  and  begins  to 
write  popular  stories.  In  these  he  strives  after  a  simplicity 
and  artlessness  far  beyond  anything  which  has  ever  yet 
been  seen.  He  will  not  grant  the  existence  of  the  artistic 
quality  in  any  writer  who  seeks  for  effect,  and  even  goes 
so  far  as  to  invert  the  natural  order  of  the  story,  so  that 
the  reader's  attention  may  not   be  strained.     But  after 


TOLSTOI  363 

having  formulated  this  fiat,  and  used  it  to  support  a 
whole  theory,  he  takes  up  his  pen  to  write  the  first 
chapter  of  his  Resurrection^  shows  us  Katioucha  haled 
before  the  magistrates  for  murder  followed  by  theft,  and, 
through  a  hundred  pages,  leaves  us  in  ignorance  of  the 
nature  of  the  crime,  the  origin  of  the  accusation,  and  the 
painful  incidents  which  have  cast  the  innocent  young 
creature  into  this  abyss  of  misery.  We  may  be  sure  that 
at  some  near  future  day  he  will  discover  that  this,  too,  is 
not  art  !  Perhaps  he  thinks  so  already.  He  is  uncon- 
scious, and  ^*  divinely  artless,"  as  one  of  his  opponents 
has  declared,  in  the  course  of  the  inquiry  initiated  by 
the  Great  Review  into  this  work  on  art,  which  must  be 
reckoned  amongst  one  of  the  most  curious  and  most 
deceptive  manifestations  of  a  mighty  genius. 

In  presence  of  the  learned  translator  and  commenta- 
tor of  the  Gospels,  I  must  declare  my  own  incompetency. 
I  should,  indeed,  incline  to  the  adoption  of  Max  Nordau's 
opinion  :  ^'  He  speaks  of  science  as  a  blind  man  might 
speak  of  colours.  He  evidently  has  no  suspicion  of  its 
nature,  of  its  duties,  of  its  methods,  and  of  the  objects 
with  which  it  is  concerned."  Such  a  blind  man,  present 
at  a  spectral  analysis  of  the  Milky  Way,  asks  himself  what 
use  it  serves,  finds  no  answer,  and  declares  it  to  be  a  folly. 
In  1894  Tolstoi  opens  hisbookon  Christianity  ^not  as  a  Mystic 
Religion^  but  as  a  New  Theory  of  Life,  with  the  candid  ac- 
knowledgment that  having  ten  years  previously,  in  What 
I  Believe,  made  a  profession  of  faith  which  he  believed 
to  be  original,  numerous  letters  from  Methodists  and 
Quakers  had  informed  him  that  his  teaching  had  long 
been  known  and  disseminated  under  the  name  of  Spiri- 
tual Christianity.  And  he  does  not  even  now  suspect 
the     contradiction    and    the    childishness    which    mark 


364  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

this  new  attempt  of  his,  in  which  he  comments  on  the 
sacred  text,  denounces  all  previous  commentators  as 
sacrilegious,  and  founds  a  thoroughgoing  attack  on  the 
authority  of  the  Church  on  documents  which  depend  for 
their  validity  on  that  authority  alone. 

But  this  is  no  affair  of  mine.  The  artist  and  the 
thinker  are  all  I  have  to  do  with,  and  I  am  painfully 
certain  that  I  am  not  worthy  to  do  them  justice.  The 
life-story  of  the  most  famous  of  all  living  writers  is  as 
universally  known  as  are  his  external  appearance,  and 
his  somewhat  eccentric  methods  of  life,  of  dress,  and 
of  work.  Thanks  to  the  somewhat  impertinent  con- 
fidences of  Madame  Seuron  {Gi'af  Leo  Tolstoi^  Intimes 
aus  seinen  Leben,  1895),  who  had  the  good  fortune  of 
spending  some  years  in  the  author's  family  circle,  and 
the  more  recent  work  published  by  M.  Serguienko  {How 
Count  Tolstoi  Lives  and  Works y  1898,  in  Russian),  we  are 
superabundantly  supplied  with  details  on  the  subject. 
We  have  seen  the  great  man  walking  along,  carrying 
his  shoes  on  the  end  of  a  stick,  ready  to  put  on  again 
if  he  should'  be  surprised  by  some  indiscreet  visitor ; 
we  have  seen  him  on  horseback  and  on  his  bicycle  ; 
in  a  w^orkman's  blouse,  in  a  peasant's  touloupe,  and  in 
a  lawn-tennis  player's  jacket ;  we  have  seen  him  working 
in  his  study,  which  looks  like  a  dungeon  ;  wielding  the 
carpenter's  awl,  and  reaping  his  own,  or  rather  other 
people's,  corn. 

The  story  runs,  indeed,  that  Tolstoi'  wrote  The  Power 
of  Darkness  in  bed,  where  he  was  kept  by  over-fatigue 
brought  on  by  helping  one  of  his  humble  village  neigh- 
bours to  save  his  harvest.  We  know  that  he  is  a 
vegetarian,  and  we  know  that  he  is  forbidden  to 
smoke,    although    Madame    Seuron    declares    she    has 


TOLSTOI  365 

caught  him  eating  sHces  of  roast  beef  on  the  sly,  and 
has  discovered  cigarette  ends  thrown  away  in  corners 
which  could  not  escape  the  eagle  eye  of  a  governess. 
No  one  will  suspect  me  of  desiring  to  attach  any  im- 
portance to  these  details,  whether  true  or  false,  concern- 
ing an  individuality  which  stands  so  high  above  the 
common  level.  Not  the  less  strange  is  it,  that  a  man 
who  has  so  passionately  and  so  sincerely  set  the  discovery 
of  w^hat  is  true,  and  simple,  and  natural  before  him,  as  the 
one  and  only  object  of  his  life,  should  have  given  rise, 
by  his  adoption  of  surroundings  w^hich  are  incontestably 
artificial  and  false,  to  observations  of  such  a  nature.  I  am 
willing  to  admit  that  family  reasons  may  have  prevented 
him  from  justifying  this  course  by  really  taking  his  place 
among  the  class  whose  dress  he  has  adopted,  and  whose 
habits  and  duties  he  occasionally  chooses  to  assume. 
None  the  less  are  we  forced  to  perceive  that  their  result 
is  a  somew^hat  regrettable  pose.  But  this  is  the  usual 
price  of  every  kind  of  human  greatness,  and  in  the  case 
of  this  very  great  man,  it  is  an  atavic  feature  of  the 
national  samodourstvoy  which  has  not  been  eradicated  by 
education, — an  education  which,  in  his  case,  was  originally 
of  the  most  hasty  and  superficial  description. 

As  every  man  knows,  Leo  NicoLAitviTCH  Tolstoi 
was  born  in  1828,  at  the  village  in  the  depths  of  the 
Government  of  Toula  which  he  still  inhabits,  and 
w^hither  visitors  from  every  corner  of  the  globe  repair 
to  pay  him  homage.  The  property  originally  belonged 
to  his  mother,  a  Volkonskaia,  whose  figure  is  conjured 
up  by  the  author  of  War  and  Peace,  in  the  form  of  the 
Princess  Marie.  This  noble  lady  died  before  Tolstoi 
was  three  years  old,  and  a  distant  relative,  Mdlle.  Tatiana 
Alexandrovna   Ergolskaia,   took  charge  of   him  and  of 


Z66  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

his  three  elder  brothers.  Before  long  the  father  died 
too,  leaving  all  his  affairs  in  confusion.  For  reasons 
connected  with  economy,  Leo  Nicolaievitch  was  re- 
moved from  the  house  in  Moscow  which  had  sheltered 
the  little  family,  and  sent  to  the  country,  where  his  edu- 
cation was  seriously  endangered  at  the  hands  of  German 
tutors  and  Russian  seminarists.  In  1841  his  legal  guar- 
dian, Mme.  Touchkov,  became  aware  of  this  fact,- and 
took  measures  to  enable  the  youth  to  continue  his 
studies,  first  at  Kasan  and  afterwards  at  St.  Petersburg. 
He  returned  home  in  1848,  having  obtained  his  Uni- 
versity degree,  but,  according  to  his  own  testimony,  as 
it  appears  in  Education  and  Instructhn,  '^  w^ith  no  correct 
knowledge  of  any  subject."  His  literary  vocation  does 
not  appear  to  have  revealed  itself  until  two  years  later, 
after  a  visit  to  the  Caucasus,  whither  he  went  w^ith  his 
brother  Nicholas,  whose  military  duty  called  him  there. 
In  his  desire  to  remain  in  a  country  in  which  he  de- 
lighted, Leo  Nicolaievitch  also  entered  the  army,  and 
at  the  same  time  he  conceived  the  plan  of  a  great  novel, 
the  subject-matter  of  which  was  to  be  drawn  from  his 
own  family  recollections.  The  idea  of  Akssakov's  Chro- 
nicle pervaded  the^atmosphere  of  that  period  !  The  first 
chapter  of  this  work,  which  was  never  to  be  completed, 
formed  part  of  that  autobiographical  fragment  known  as 
Childhoody  Boyhood^  and  Youth. 

It  was  followed  by  a  series  of  tales — A  Morning  i^i 
the  Life  of  a  Landed  Proprietor ^  I^tccernCy  The  Cossacks — 
all  of  them  reproducing  that  type,  so  dear  to  Lermon- 
tov  and  Pouchkine,  of  the  high-born  dreamer,  whose 
fanciful  aspirations  melt  away  to  nothing  at  their  first 
contact  with  reality.  Olcnine,  the  hero  of  The  Cossacks^ 
is  another  Aleko,  or  a  second  Pietchorine,  only  too  happy 


TOLSTOI  367 

to  distract  his  boredom  and  weariness  of  the  great  world 
in  the  depths  of  the  wild  beauty  of  the  Caucasus,  until 
Marianka,  the  half-barbarous  girl,  makes  him  realise  the 
abyss  that  lies  between  his  own  civilised  temperament 
and  those  primitive  elements  with  which  he  would  fain 
have  mingled  his  existence. 

'  This  subject  is  identical,  as  my  readers  will  recollect, 
with  that  of  Le  Mariage  de  Lotiy  though  no  suspicion  of 
imitation  can  possibly  arise.  And  this,  besides,  is  of  no 
great  importance.  It  is  quite  evident  that  in  his  earlier 
creations  Tolstoi'  depended  on  the  common  fund  of  the 
National  Literature.  His  first  impressions  of  mystic  re- 
ligiosity also  date  from  this  period,  and  are  connected 
with  an  incident  which  he  has  confided  to  his  friend 
Pogodine. 

After  having  promised  never  to  touch  a  card  again, 
Tolstoi"  had  played,  and  lost  a  sum  which  he  could  see 
no  means  of  procuring.  Worn  out  and  despairing,  he 
prayed  fervently  and  fell  asleep,  trusting  to  Heaven  to 
lift  him  out  of  his  difficulty.  When  he  awoke,  a  letter, 
w^hich  he  had  no  reason  of  any  kind  to  expect,  brought 
him  the  money  he  so  sorely  needed. 

He  remained  in  the  Caucasus  till  1853,  taking  his 
share  in  every  expedition,  and  bearing  all  the  fatigues 
and  privations  of  a  private  soldier.  In  1854  and  1855 
he  fought  through  the  Crimean  campaign  on  Prince 
Gortschakoff's  staff  ;  he  was  at  the  battle  of  the  Tchernaia 
and  at  the  siege  of  Sevastopol.  This  page  of  his  exist- 
ence has  been  reproduced  in  three  little  masterpieces — 
Sevastopol  in  December ^  in  May^  and  in  A  ugust. 

The  author's  mastery  of  his  craft  is  already  evident  in 
these  pages  ;  his  minute  description  of  material  details,  and 
his  close  analysis  of- psychological  motives, — even  in  the 


368  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

midst  of  a  bloody  struggle, — are  absolutely  perfect.  No 
one,  either  before  or  after  him,  not  even  Stendhal,  has 
carried  observation  of  the  moral  instincts  on  the  field  of 
battle  to  such  a  pitch  of  acuteness.  Tolstoi'  even  shows 
us  how  the  very  man  who  has  behaved  like  a  hero  under 
lire,  can,  a  moment  afterwards,  betray  the  meanest  sel- 
fishness. In  spite  of  its  truthfulness,  this  view  or  pre- 
sentation of  things  and  facts  already  betrays  an  equal 
amount  of  fancy  and  ideology,  both  of  them  open  to 
question ;  and  I  should  not  care  to  endorse  the  view 
of  certain  Russian  critics,  who  compare  the  contempo- 
rary Letters  from  the  Crimea  of  Sir  William  Russell,  which 
had  its  hour  of  fame,  with  "  Illustrated  Almanacks  for 
Children."  There  is  less  high-flown  philosophy,  per- 
haps, in  the  Times  correspondent's  letters  ;  but  was  that 
any  loss  to  his  readers  ?  I  shall  dwell  on  this  subject 
later,  and  with  all  the  frankness  due  to  my  own  readers. 
Tolstoi  left  the  army  in  1855,  and,  thenceforward 
spent  his  summers  at  lasnaia  Poliana,  and  his  winters 
between  Moscow  and  St.  Petersburg.  The  works  to 
w^hich  I  have  already  referred  had  placed  his  reputation 
on  a  level,  in  the  public  estimation,  with  those  of  Tour- 
gueniev  and  Gontcharov,  yet  his  attention  to  literature 
continued  to  be  of  an  intermittent  nature.  While  Alex- 
ander the  Second's  Commission  was  preparing  the  great 
edict  which  was  to  emancipate  the  serfs,  the  Pamie- 
chtchik  of  lasnaia  Poliana  had  undertaken  the  task  of 
solving  the  problem  of  the  popular  schools,  which  had 
never,  as  yet,  advanced  beyond  the  stage  of  empty  pro- 
ject. With  this  object,  it  would  appear,  he  went  abroad 
twice  over,  between  1855  and  1861.  The  emancipation  of 
the  serfs  was  somewhat  against  Tolstoi's  personal  convic- 
tions, and  some  sign  of  this  was  to  appear  in    War  and 


TOLSTOI'S   "WAR   AND   PEACE"  369 

Peace.  Yet,  after  the  19th  of  February  1861,  he  was  one 
of  the  few  land-owners  who  decided  to  Hve  in  the  country. 
He  remained  at  lasnaia  PoHana,  w^hich  had  now  be- 
come his  own  property,  zealously  fulfilled  the  functions 
of  an  **  Umpire  of  Peace"  {Mirovo'i Possrednik\  showed 
the  deepest  interest  in  popular  education,  and  even 
undertook  the  publication  of  an  educational  newspaper, 
to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  his  own  property,  and  in 
which  he  displayed  great  originality  of  thought.  In  it  he 
mingled  his  ideas  on  national  instruction  with  very  para- 
doxical views  on  education  at  large,  on  civilisation  and 
on  progress.  Progress,  in  his  opinion,  was  only  neces- 
sary to  a  very  restricted  number  of  persons,  who  could 
command  leisure-time.  For  all  others,  he  considered  it 
not  merely  a  superfluous,  but  an  evil  thing.  In  fact,  he 
preached  Rousseau's  doctrines  over  again. 

In  1862  he  married  the  daughter  of  a  doctor,  Sophia 
Andreievna  Bers,  and  gave  himself  up  entirely  to  family 
life,  certain  charming  features  of  which  he  had  not  yet 
begun  to  contemn.  It  was  not  till  near  1870  that  the 
first  chapters  of  his  great  novel,  War  and  Peace^  began 
to  appear  in  The  Russian  Messenger.  My  readers  are 
acquainted  with  the  immense  and  universal  success  of 
this  work — a  success  which  did  not,  however,  tempt  Leo 
Nicolaievitch  from  his  other  occupations.  While  the 
whole  of  Russia  was  devouring  and  discussing  the  pages 
which  had  just  immortalised  his  name,  their  author's 
time  was  spent  in  publishing  alphabets  and  class-books 
for  the  primary  schools.  A  consideration  of  this  collec- 
tion of  pamphlets  is  full  of  interest.  It  is  curious  to 
observe  that  great  intellect  struggling  with  the  infinite 
smallness  of  rudimentary  intelligences,  performing  pro- 
digies of  elementary  ingenuity,  and  producing  master- 


370  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

pieces  of  childish  mnemonics.  Not  till  the  famine  of 
1873  brought  desolation  on  the  province  of  Samara^ 
could  the  mighty  writer  turn  his  mind  from  these  humble 
occupations.  He  travelled  to  the  scenes  of  this  disaster, 
and  published  the  result  of  his  personal  inquiries  in  the 
Moscow  Gazette,  His  report  made  an  extraordinary  stir. 
The  Government  had  been  endeavouring  to  hide  the  facts, 
so  as  to  conceal  its  own  responsibility.  Tolstoi,  without 
phrases  or  rhetoric  of  any  kind,  simply  recounted  what 
he  had  seen,  and  so  forced  the  Government  to  join  the 
public  in  the  organisation  of  that  succour  which  had 
become  indispensable. 

The  publication,  in  1875,  of  the  author's  second  great 
novel,  Anna  Karenina,  was  followed,  as  my  readers 
doubtless  know,  by  a  fresh  rupture  on  his  part  with 
artistic  literature.  In  My  Religion,  Tolstoi'  explained  the 
reasons  of  the  conversion  of  Levine,  one  of  the  heroes 
of  his  novel,  and  then  applied  all  his  energies  to  setting 
forth,  in  a  series  of  pamphlets  and  books,  the  doctrines 
of  the  new  faith  held  by  the  convert,  with  whom  he 
appeared  to  identify  himself.  All  hope  of  a  continuance 
of  the  fine  work  which  had  raised  him  so  high  seemed 
lost,  and  Tourgueniev,  lying  on  his  death-bed,  sent  him 
this  eloquent  appeal  :  *'  Mj/  friendj  come  back  to  your 
literary  work  I  that  gift  has  been  sent  to  you  by  Him 
who  gives  us  all  things.  .  .  .  My  friend,  great  writer  of 
our  Russian  soil  !  grant  this  pi^ayer  of  mine ! "  The 
prayer  was  granted.  There  had  been  misunderstand- 
ings and  collisions  between  these  two  men,  each  so  well 
suited  to  value  the  other's  work.  Tolstoi  had  fallen 
asleep,  in  Tourgueniev's  presence,  over  the  manuscript 
of  Fathers  and  Children  ;  but  at  the  moment  of  supreme 
farewell,  Tourgueniev  forgot  it  all,  and  Tolstoi  seemed 


TOLSTOI'S    "WAR   AND    PEACE"  371 

to  bow  before  the  parting  wish  of  his  great  rival.  In 
spite  of  plunges,  more  and  more  risky,  into  exegesis, 
theology,  and  mysticism,  the  course  of  which  I  find 
myself  less  and  less  able  to  follow,  the  readers  of  the 
wonderful  author  of  War  and  Peace  have  welcomed  him 
back  on  such  joyful  occasions  as  those  of  the  publication 
of  The  Death  of  Ivan  Illitchy  The  Kreutzer  Sonatay  Master 
and  Workman^  and  The  Power  of  Darkness.  It  would 
appear  that  we  owe  our  present  delight  in  reading  Re- 
surrection to  the  sect  called  the  Doukhobortsyy  and  to  the 
interest  with  which  they  have  inspired  its  writer.  For 
several  years  Tolstoi'  had  ceased  to  claim  his  author's 
rights.  He  has  reclaimed  them  in  the  case  of  this  new 
novel,  and  has  intended  to  apply  the  proceeds  to  assisting 
the  emigration  of  this  clan  of  strange  eccentrics,  con- 
cerning whom  I  shall  have  a  few  words  to  say.  But  I 
must  first  endeavour  to  lay  the  whole  of  that  literary 
work,  of  which  Resurrection  is  at  present  the  last,  and, 
I  should  be  inclined  to  think,  the  highest  expression, 
before  my  readers'  eyes.  They  will  realise  that  in  so 
short  a  study  I  can  only  touch  on  the  general  aspects 
of  the  subject. 

In  Herr  Reinholdt's  very  remarkable  History  of  Rus- 
sian Litej'aturCy  he  presents  the  author  of  War  and  Peace 
as  an  instance,  which,  he  considers,  may  be  possibly  unique, 
"of  the  greatest  artistic  harmony,  and  of  an  absolutely 
straightforward  continuity  of  development,  joined  to  the 
highest  possible  degree  of  intellectual  maturity."  This 
judgment  Tolstoi  himself  contravenes,  when,  in  My  Reli- 
giony  he  indicates,  with  the  most  perfect  sincerity,  the 
contradictions,  flagrant  indeed,  into  which  the  workings 
of  his  mind  have  previously  led  him.  These  he  then 
ascribed  to  a  mental  crisis,  the  date  of  which  he  fixed  as 


372  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

being  towards  1875.  But  it  would  be  very  difficult  to 
accept  this  explanation.  The  lapses  from  that  "  straight- 
forward continuity  of  development,"  of  which  the  German 
critic  speaks,  began  at  an  earlier,  and  have  recurred  at  a 
much  later  date.  We  could  hardly,  in  fact,  conceive  a 
line  more  capriciously  broken.  The  very  artist  w^ho  shows 
himself  so  full  of  the  delight  of  life  in  his  Childhood  or 
Boyhoody  and  in  many  passages  of  his  War  and  Peace^ 
has  gone  further  than  any  writer  of  his  country  in  his 
description  of  the  terrors  of  death.  And  this  appears 
not  only  in  The  Death  of  Ivan  Illitch  and  in  The  Kreutzer 
Sonata,  but  even  in  his  earliest  literary  attempts.  Thus, 
from  the  very  first,  the  sincere  optimist  was  as  sincere  a 
pessimist.  And  this  is  not  all.  Watch  this  acute  analyst 
of  the  human  soul,  who  discovers  mere  reflex  action, 
physical  and  unconscious,  even  in  its  most  violent  trans- 
ports ;  follow  him  when,  on  some  page  hard  by,  he  depicts 
the  almost  instantaneous  transformation  of  the  most 
incredulous  of  men  into  a  firm  believer,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  I  know  not  what  occult  power ;  surely  this  is 
true  mysticism  !  And  this  other  conversion  shows  us 
Peter  Bezoukhov,  a  favourite  hero  of  the  olden  days, 
long  previous  to  the  mental  crisis  of  1875. 

In  spite  of  his  world-wide  reputation,  Tolstof  has 
been,  and  has  remained,  an  essentially  Russian  writer, 
and,  as  such,  shares  the  general  mental  quality  of  his 
country,  of  which  one  characteristic  feature  consists  in 
the  inability  to  bring  its  beliefs  and  feelings  into  harmony. 
In  my  references  to  Dostoievski's  communistic  feeling  I 
have  pointed  out  that  the  author  of  War  and  Peace  is  a 
dogmatic  individualist ;  all  his  teaching,  religious  and 
philosophic,  proves  the  truth  of  this  definition.  Never- 
theless, the  common  feature  of  all  his  artistic  creations 


TOLSTOI  3/3 

is,  on  the  contrary,  to  be  found  in  a  constant  feeling  of 
distrust  of  the  individual,  arising  out  of  the  conviction 
that  no  individual  is  capable  of  attaining  anything  at  all 
by  his  own  strength.  When  Tolstoi'  declared,  in  a  pas- 
sage of  his  Memories  of  Sevastopol^  that  truth  was  his  one 
and  only  hero,  he  certainly  deceived  himself.  The  true 
and  only  hero,  that  in  which  he  finds  his  invariable 
delight,  is  the  mob.  In  it,  in  its  beliefs  and  tastes  and 
ideas,  he  perceives  that  truth  which  he  claims  to  serve. 
A  good  life  is  the  ordinary  life  of  the  nation.  To  think 
well,  we  must  think  like  the  people,  for  wisdom  lies  not 
in  knowledge,  but  in  the  unconscious  feeling  of  the  popu- 
lar masses.  We  must  not  seek  to  guide  these  masses, 
we  should  rather  be  led  by  them,  for  man  is  only  power- 
ful inasmuch  as  he  is  borne  on  the  waves  of  that  great 
ocean.  Those  figures,  fictitious  or  historical,  which  rise 
above  the  common  level,  can  only  win  Tolstoi's  sym- 
pathy if  they  represent  a  national  idea,  and  make  no 
attempt  to  impose  their  conceptions  upon  others.  In 
his  mind,  Koutousov,  who  mistrusted  himself  and  those 
who  worked  w^ith  him,  and  relied  on  the  instinct  of  his 
own  people,  is  far  greater  than  Napoleon.  For  Napoleon, 
according  to  him,  flattered  himself  for  live-and-twenty 
years  that  he  was  leading  Europe,  w^hereas  he  was  simply 
floating  along,  the  mere  toy  of  a  mighty  current  of  history. 
Thus,  in  Anna  Kareninay  Levine,  the  good  and 
simple-hearted,  finds  the  truth — that  is  to  say,  the  solu- 
tion of  the  problem  of  life — while  Vronski,  clever  and 
intelligent,  only  brings  misfortune  upon  himself  and 
those  belonging  to  him.  The  uselessness  of  heroism 
and  of  struggling  with  life,  and  the  necessity  for  resig- 
nation, form  a  realistic  feature  in  which  Tolstoi's  work 
agrees  with  that  of  Dostoievski. 


374  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

But  the  instances  of  resignation  portrayed  by  Dgsto'i- 
evski  all  occur  in  persons  of  high  moral  development 
who  have  been  beaten  in  the  battle  of  life,  whereas 
Tolstoi'  makes  the  recognition  of  a  man's  nothingness 
in  the  face  of  Nature,  in  the  face  of  society,  and  before 
God,  not  the  highest  wisdom  only,  but  also  the  road 
which  leads  to  happiness,  and  individual  happiness,  the 
only  end  to  be  attained — whence  other  contradictions 
arise. 

In  Tolstoi's  nature  there  are,  and  always  have  been, 
several  men,  whose  development  runs  on  parallel  lines. 
If  the  author  has  escaped  that  condition  of  internal  con- 
flict which  has  brought,  and  still  brings,  anguish  to  many 
of  his  fellow-countrymen,  he  owes  it  both  to  the  wide 
embracing  power  of  his  talent,  and  also  to  the  fate  which 
has  made  him  a  creator  of  pictures.  Had  he  been  a 
man  of  action,  he  would  have  been  drawn,  like  so  many 
others,  into  the  inevitable  struggle  between  fact  and  idea. 
Being,  as  he  is,  an  artist,  he  has  reflected,  even  as  in  a 
mirror,  faithful  and  unmoved,  the  life  of  his  country  in 
^  all  its  many  aspects.  His  power  of  universal  refraction 
is  probably  unequalled.  He  is  just  as  much  at  his  ease 
in  a  peasant's  cot  as  in  a  St.  Petersburg  drawing-room. 
He  is  a  born  hunter  on  the  marshes,  where  some  readers 
of  Anna  Karenina  may  have  been  occasionally  bored, 
but  where  all  lovers  of  sporting  exploits  must  have 
enjoyed  the  most  delightful  experiences  ;  and  he  proves 
himself  versed  in  every  detail  touching  the  horse  and 
horsemanship  when  he  takes  Vronski  into  ''Frou-Frou's  " 
box.  It  is  his  plural  personality  which  has  enabled  him 
to  bring  forward  the  most  varied  types,  even  though 
he  works,  like  every  artist  in  bookmaking,  after  a  single 
/  model — his  own  self,  analysed  and  reproduced  ad  injini^ 


TOLSTOI'S   TYPES  375 

turn.  In  this  matter  he  is  to  be  distinguished  from  his 
Western  emulators,  in  that  he  makes  no  attempt  to 
ideaHse  the^  features  of  his  own  character,  but  is  rather 
incHned  to  present  them  in  the  least  favourable  light. 
This  tendency,  which  was  apparent  in  Pouchkine's  case, 
and  is  yet  more  evident  in  that  of  Dostoievski,  is  common 
to  the  whole  Russian  school,  and  constitutes  what  may* 
be  considered  its  truest  element  of  originality. 

Tolstoi's  characters,  *like  those  of  Tourgueniev,  may 
be  reduced  to  a  certain  number  of  general  types.  The 
central  type,  which  pervades  his  whole  work,  from 
Nikolenka,  the  hero  of  Childhood ^  down  to  Pozdnychev 
in  the  Kreutzer  Sonata^  and  Nekhlioudov  in  Resurrection^  is 
par ex'celle7tce  the  autobiographical  type.  It  possesses  none  ' 
of  the  bi  illiant  qualities  with  w^hich  Byron  delighted  to 
invest  his  successive  incarnations  of  his  own  haughty 
individuality.  It  rather  embodies  a  being  of  ordinary 
and  mediocre  calibre,  to  whom  life  brings  more  evil 
fortune  than  good-luck ;  w^ho  not  unfrequently  makes 
himself  ridiculous,  and  has  not  even  the  resource  re- 
served to  Tourgueniev's  heroes,  of  joking  over  his  own 
misadventures.  Such  figures  as  Vronski  and  Andrew 
Volkonski,  with  their  beauty,  their  superior  gifts,  and 
the  good  fortune  which  attends  their  undertakmgs,  are 
put  forward  in  contrast  to  these  outcasts  from  fortune. 
But  the  author^s  preference  is  by  no  means  with  them, 
and  at  some  turn  of  the  road,  their  lucky  star  is  sure 
to  fail  them.  An  intermediate  type  is  represented  by 
Nicholas  Rostov  in  War  and  Peace,  and  Stiva  Oblonski 
in  Anna  Karenina,  These  are  men  who  possess  happi-  \ 
ness  because  they  do-  not  look  too  high  or  too  far  to 
seek  it ;  aimably  selfish  beings,  in  other  words,  on 
whom  Tolstoi'  bestows  a  scornful  smile.  And  now  come 
25 


176  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

his  favourites,  the  men  who  have  found  the  real  inward 
truth,  who  expect  nothing  from  hfe,  because  nothing 
that  hfe  can  give  will  suit  their  need.  Their  joy  and 
contentment  lies  within  their  own  soul — a  soul  full  of 
simplicity,  humility,  and  indifference  to  worldly  things. 
Such  are  the  poor  musician  in  Lucerney  Platon  Karataiev 
in  War  and  Peacey  and  the  old  nightman  Akime,  in  the 
Power  of  Darkness, 

The  setting  within  which  the  author  makes  all  these 
figures  live  and  move  is  a  huge  one.  In  his  first  begin- 
nings Tolstoi  revealed  himself  as  possessing  a  marvellous 
and  very  realistic  power  of  painting  childhood.  Even 
.  while  Nikolenka  weeps  tears  of  the  sincerest  grief  over 
his  mother's  tomb,  he  is  thinking  of  many  things  which 
have  nothing  to  do  with  his  sorrow,  deep  though  it  be. 
Nikolenka's  surroundings  all  belong  to  the  aristocratic 
sphere,  and  the  author's  picture  of  this  society,  touched 
in  with  an  air  of  the  most  complete  indifference,  bears 
no  sign  of  that  anxiety  on  social  matters  which  was 
already  stirring  the  contemporary  mind.  Tolstoi'  offers 
no  reply  to  the  endless  questions,  such  as  *^  Whose 
fault  ?"  and  '^  What  is  to  be  done  ?"  put  forward,  just  at 
this  period,  by  Herzen  and  Tchernichevski.  He  does 
not  seem  to  be  aware  of  their  existence.  The  Two 
Hussars  and  Domestic  Happiness  belong  to  this  cycle, 
as  well  as  Childhood^  Boyhood^  and  Youth,      ^ 

In  Memories  of  Sevastopol^  The  Invasion^  The  Three 
Deathsy  The  Cossacksy  the  scene  changes.  The  stage 
broadens,  and  the  philosopher,  hitherto  concealed  be- 
neath the  author,  makes  his  entrance.  He  attacks  the 
real  question  and  problem  of  life,  how  we  must  live  if  we 
will  die  worthily.  And  here  begins  the  teaching  of  the 
theory  of  blissful  unconsciousness.     The  true  hero  of 


TOLSTOI  377 

the  Crimean  war  is  the  private  soldier,  who  is  heroic 
and  great  because  he  knows  not  how  great  a  thing  it  is 
to  die  for  his  country.  This  doctrine  appears  yet  more 
clearly  in  The  Three  Deaths^  the  agonising  death  of  a 
nobly-born  woman,  the  easy  death  of  a  man  of  humble 
birth,  and  the  happy  and  unconscious  death  of  a  felled 
tree.  Following  on  the  art  of  dying  well,  we  see  the 
art  of  living  well,  as  taught  in  The  Cossacks ^  in  which 
book  Tolstoi',  with  his  apology  for  elementary  simplicity, 
begins  to  put  forward  the  theory  which  is  to  be  the  last 
expression  of  his  philosophy.  Amongst  all  the  forms  of 
happiness,  or,  in  other  words,  of  the  satisfaction  of  natural 
instincts,  love  of  our  neighbour  and  self-sacrifice  are  at 
once  the  most  legitimate  and  the  most  easily  attained. 
From  this  time  forward,  individualism  and  altruism  are 
to  wage  eternal  war  in  the  author's  intelligence. 

The  struggle  is  less  evident  in  War  and  Peace  and 
in  Anna  Karenina^  because  in  these  w^orks,  the  thinker 
is  frequently  overshadowed  by  the  depictor  of  incident. 
In  their  pages,  deductions  having  a  particular  tendency 
only  appear  as  excrescences  on  the  trunk  of  a  mighty 
tree  ;  and  this  to  such  an  extent  that  an  attempt  has 
been  made  to  extract  them  from  the  original  works  and 
form  them  into  a  separate  appendix.  The  theory  of  un- 
consciousness has  a  personal  reason  and  justification  in 
the  case  of  this  admirable  artist.  He  himself  is  really 
great  only  when  he  creates  unconsciously,  by  a  process 
of  internal  and,  as  I  might  describe  it,  automatic  trans- 
formation of  his  external  impressions.  When  he  endea- 
vours to  analyse  these  impressions,  or  to  reduce  any 
phenomenon  to  its  elementary  parts,  or  when,  by  an 
inverse  operation,  he  attempts  a  synthesis  of  the  ele- 
ments which  go  to  make  up  the  diversity  of  life,  he  loses 


378  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

'himself  in  a  maze  of  definitions,  analogies,  and  demon- 
strations, the  logic  of  which  he  himself  seems  to  be  the 
first  to  doubt.  And  at  the  same  time,  we  notice  in  him 
a  trait  of  feminine  intellectuality — a  tendency  to  mingle 
logical  deduction  with  the  sentiment  of  the  moment, 
and  confound  his  reason  with  the  dictates  of  his  heart. 

The  outcome  of  this  is  yet  another  contradiction. 
Now,  from  the  point  of  view  of  general  composition.  War 
and  Peace  belongs,  as  a  whole,  to  an  order  of  creation 
which  may  be  described  as  being  in  a  sense  instinctive. 
The  author's  object  is  not  so  much  to  prove  any  parti- 
cular theory,  as  to  show  us  Russia  as  she  was  at  the  time 
of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  and  to  reflect  his  country  in  a 
mirror  of  huge  scope,  and  sympathy  that  is  wide  indeed, 
since  it  even  embraces  the  law  of  serfdom.  Everything 
that  is  Russian  is  dear  to  Tolstoi',  as  it  is,  and  just  because 
it  is  Russian.  This  must  not  be  taken  to  be  the  Olympian 
indifference  of  Goethe,  nor  the  impassibility  of  a  French 
writer  of  the  Naturalist  school.  It  is  rather  a  sort  of 
indulgent  acknowledgment  of  human  weakness  and  of 
the  nothingness  of  the  highest  life — a  feeling  which  once 
more  brings  the  author  into  kinship  with  Dostoievski. 
Yet  in  Tolstoi's  case  this  sentiment  is  more  restricted, 
and  does  not  extend  to  suffering  and  guilt.  Not  that 
the  author  is  more  inclined  to  severity,  but  that  in  his 
eyes  suffering  and  crime  are  both  very  small  matters, 
concerning  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  disturb  one's  self. 
Here  we  have  a  sort  of  backward  gleam  of  the  old  Greek 
plays,  in  which  the  faults  and  afflictions  of  the  heroes  are 
recognised  to  be  only  the  result  of  the  immutable  will  of 
the  gods. 

After  his  own  fashion,  Tolstoi  is  a  fatalist,  and  the 
philosopher  of  the  Memories  of  Sevastopol  reappears  un- 


TOLSTOl  379 

fortunately,  from  time  to  time,  and  hews  out  a  part  for 
himself  even  in  War  and  Peace,  as  when  he  deliberately 
intervenes  in  the  description  of  those  bloody  encounters 
wherein  the  fortunes  of  Russia  and  Napoleon  hung  in 
the  balance.  The  author's  fundamental  idea  in  this 
respect  is  indicated  when  Koutousov  falls  asleep  at  the 
council  of  war,  during  which  the  plan  of  the  battle  of 
Austerlitz  is  discussed,  and  is  shown  reading  a  novel  on 
the  very  eve  of  the  battle  of  the  Borodino.  This  proves 
his  wisdom,  because  he  leaves  events  to  work  themselves 
out  without  making  any  attempt  to  guide  them.  And 
these  events  are  accomplished,  not  by  means  of  any 
individual  effort,  but  by  the  unconscious  action  of  the 
mass,  which  itself  obeys  a  superior  and  superhuman 
will.  Men  are  nothing  but  automata.  Any  pretension 
to  guide  them,  or  to  find  fault  with  them  if  they  will 
not  move  in  the  direction  we  desire,  is  equally  absurd. 
All  we  can  aspire  to  is  to  analyse  the  psychological 
process  which  takes  place  w^ithin  their  souls  under  occult 
influences ;  and  here  we  see  Tolstoi  taking  up,  on  a  far 
larger  scale,  the  work  he  had  already  attempted  under 
the  walls  of  Sevastopol.  It  is  a  process  of  miniature 
painting  and  micrography  which  quite  disconcerted  the 
earliest  readers  of  War  and  Peace — I  mean,  its  Russian 
readers,  for  the  book  has  been  less  discussed  in  the 
West  than  in  the  author's  own  country.  It  is  certain 
that  the  resources  at  the  disposal  of  the  author  of  Me- 
mories of  Sevastopol  were  quite  insufHcient  to  warrant  his 
constituting  himself  the  historian  of  the  great  Napoleonic 
wars.  He  looked  at  the  battlefields  of  Austerlitz  and  the 
Borodino  with  the  eyes,  the  experience,  and  the  know- 
ledge of  the  young  artillery  officer  of  1854.  No  writer, 
indeed,  ever    knew   better   how  to   depict  a  battery  of 


3 So  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

artillery   or    a    squadron    of    cavalry   in    action    under 
fire. 

But  the  young  artillery  officer  had  evidently  failed  to 
perceive  the  connection  of  this  particular  action  with 
that  of  the  other  units  engaged  in  the  same  struggle, 
and  the  ingenuous  artist  has  come  to  the  conclusion  that 
no  such  connection  existed.  How  w^as  the  battle  of 
Austerlitz  lost  on  one  side  and  gained  on  the  other  ? 
Napoleon  knew  nothing  of  that,  any  more  than  Koutousov. 
The  head  of  a  French  column,  which  chanced  to  be  on 
a  particular  spot,  blundered,  thanks  to  the  fog  which 
shrouded  its  movements,  across  the  head  of  a  Russian 
column  which  ought  to  have  been  somewhere  else.  The 
result  w^as  a  panic,  and  all  the  rest.  Tolstoi"  covers  whole 
pages  with  irrational  statements  of  this  kind.  From  the 
military  point  of  view  it  is  mere  childishness  ;  from  the 
artistic  point  of  view  it  is  over-generalisation,  and  leads 
the  painter  to  fill  the  hugest  canvas  with  a  multitude  of 
tiny  sketches.  His  method  is  an  absolute  negation  of 
serious  art.  I  go  further,  and  say  it  is  the  negation  of 
truth.  Here  again  we  have  the  cinematographist's  nega- 
tive ;  but  the  cinematograph  is  not  merely  a  process  of 
decomposition ;  it  recomposes,  and  gives  us  a  mechanical 
representation  of  connected  movement.  Now,  as  I  have 
show^n,  Tolstoi's  idea,  far  from  assisting  his  reader  towards 
this  recomposition,  after  the  manner  of  Tourgueniev, 
formally  forbids  him  to  attempt  it.  And  I  will  add  that 
many  of  his  snapshots  lack  accuracy  and  precision.  The 
abuse  of  detail  inevitably  leads  to  such  mistakes  as  these. 
He  brings  us  on  to  a  square  in  Moscow  in  1812  ;  a  French 
cook,  suspected  of  being  a  spy,  has  just  been  flogged. 
"  The  executioner  y'  says  Tolstoi,  "  unbound  the  prisoner 
from  the  stake ;  he  was  a  big  man  with  reddish  whiskers ^ 


TOLSTOI  381 

wearing  dark  blue  stockings  and  a  green  coatP  This 
detail  is  most  circumstantial,  but  it  must  be  incorrect, 
for  at  such  a  moment  the  culprit  certainly  had  no  coat 
upon  his  back. 

Looking  at  it  from  the  philosophical  standpoint,  the 
author's  fatalist  theory  finds  its  most  redoubtable  con- 
tradiction in  his  own  person.  The  characters  in  War 
and  Peace  may  be  divided  into  two  categories — those  who 
consciously  pursue  some  aim,  such  as  the  two  emperors. 
Prince  Bolkonski  and  his  old  father,  the  Kouraguine 
family,  and  the  heroine  of  the  story,  Natacha  Rostov,  and 
those  who  allow  the  current  to  sweep  them  away,  such 
as  Peter  Bezoukhov,  old  Rostov,  the  Princess  Marie, 
Platonij  Karataiev,  and  Koutousov.  Happiness  and  final 
success  are  the  portion  of  these  last.  But  this  happiness 
does  not  strike  us,  on  closer  examination,  as  being  parti- 
cularly tempting.  When  I  look  at  Bezoukhov,  married  to 
a  w^oman  who  plays  him  false,  the  ill-starred  witness  of 
the  battle  of  the  Borodino,  an  occasion  on  w^hich  he 
cannot  discover  either  what  he  is  doing  or  wherefore 
he  is  there  at  all,  then  a  half-delirious  wanderer  in  the 
streets  of  Moscow,  where  the  French  threaten  to  shoot 
him  for  incendiarism,  and  finally  a  fugitive,  straying  in 
the  footsteps  of  Napoleon's  army ; — the  idea  of  his  con- 
dition offering  any  seduction  to  an  imagination  in  quest 
of  felicity  would  indeed  surprise  me. 

And  finally,  from  the  historic  point  of  view,  Koutousov, 
who  vanquishes  Napoleon  by  dint  of  sleeping  or  reading 
novels,  while  his  adversary  plans  his  battles,  is,  fortunately 
for  history,  not  only  an  improbability,  but  a  downright 
falsehood. 

In  the  composition  of  Anna  Karenina,  Tolstoi'  re- 
mained faithful  to  his  own   theory  and   method.     We 


382  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

find  the  same.wealth  of  episode,  in  the  more  restricted 
setting  of  family  life,  and  the  same  contrast  drawn 
between  the  pride  of  individualism  in  its  own  strength, 
and  a  humble  submission  to  a  superior  and  occult  power. 
A  similar  antagonism  is  brought  into  rehef  in  the  mental 
condition  of  the  principal  hero,  torn  asunder  by  an 
internal  conflict,  and  in  the  comparison  between  the 
tumultuous  existence  of  great  cities  and  the  peaceful 
conditions  of  country  life.  On  one  side  w^e  have  men 
of  intelligence  and  tact ;  on  the  other,  men  of  simple 
heart  and  kind  good-nature.  But  these  last  always  win 
the  day.  Levine  triumphs  over  Vronski.  But  Levine, 
the  intellectual  descendant  of  Bezoukhov,  is  destined, 
this  time,  to  reveal  the  true  prescription  for  the  cure  of 
moral  suffering,  the  secret  of  which  has  just  been  dis- 
covered by  the  harvester  of  lasnaia  Poliana — the  healing 
/virtue  of  physical  labour.  At  the  same  time  we  observe 
the  dawn  of  Socialist  ideas,  which  seemed  quite  unknown 
to  the  author  of  War  and  Peace^  as,  more  especially,  in 
that  famous  hunting  scene  in  which  Levine,  during  a 
discussion  with  Oblonski,  suddenly  realises  the  injustice 
of  making  use  of  another  man's  labour.  Here  we  have 
the  germ  of  the  whole  of  Tolstoi's  later  philosophic 
teaching,  afterwards  to  be  so  brilliantly  developed  and 
put  into  practice.  We  may  wonder  that  he  should  have 
chosen  Levine  as  the  channel  through  which  he  bestows 
these  first-fruits  on  the  outer  world.  This  country  gentle- 
man, who  forgets  to  go  to  the  church  on  his  wedding 
day,  and,  when  the  elections  come  round,  begs  every  one 
to  tell  him  how  he  should  vote,  is  but  a  sorry  prophet. 
Tolstoi,  indeed,  desires  we  should  believe  him  to  be  a 
cultivated  man,  whose  studies  of  German  philosophy, 
for  which  he  nevertheless  professes  a  hearty  scorn,  have 


TOLSTOI'S   ''ANNA   KARENINA"  383 

imbued  him  with  a  deep-seated  scepticism.  How  then  is 
it  that  he  presents  such  an  appearance  of  brutish  coarse- 
ness ?  And  here  is  something  which  may  astonish  us 
yet  more.  When  Levine,  wandering  through  the  mazes 
of  intellectual  speculation,  utterly  loses  his  bearings  and 
knows  not  which  way  to  turn,  it  is  a  peasant,  with  whom 
he  falls  into  conversation,  who  arrives  just  in  time  to 
show  him  the  true  path.  All  he  has  to  do  is  to  go 
straight  forward,  in  humble  trust  that  God  wdll  guide  him 
in  the  right  direction. 

How^  comes  it  that  this  dweller  in  the  country  has 
not  already  stumbled  upon  this  peasant,  or  some  other, 
just  as  capable  of  leading  him  on  the  right  road  ?  Their 
name  is  legion  !  We  have  met  the  very  same  individual 
in  War  and  Peace ;  there  he  bore  the  name  of  Karataiev, 
and  likewise  preached  a  blind  submission  to  the  will  of 
God.  But  to  w^hat  God  ?  A  doubt  w^as  permissible  then  ; 
but  that  is  over  now\  The  God  to  whom  Levine  is  to 
make  over  the  government  of  his  life  is  not  the  Christ. 
This  God  is  Buddha.  I  will  not  attempt  to  explain  the 
manner  in  which  Tolstoi*  contrives  to  combine  the  doc- 
trine of  Nirvana  and  the  divine  law  of  labour,  in  his 
ow^n  teaching.  Regarding  the  case  between  town  and 
country  life,  w^hich  the  prophet  decides,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  in  favour  of  the  tillers  of  the  soil,  every  wTiter 
since  Pouchkine  has  taken  the  same  line,  following  that 
of  Rousseau  and  George  Sand.  Only  Rousseau  and 
George  Sand  have  been  careful  to  strengthen  their  ver- 
dict by  more  or  less  w^ell-founded  preambles.  But  Tolstoi' 
is  less  explicit.  W^hen,  even  in  his  later  and  purely 
philosophical  works,  it  becomes  his  duty  to  indicate  the 
nature  of  "  the  falsehood  of  civilised  life,"  he  gropes  and 
fumbles,  sometimes  formulating  charges  against  science 


384  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

and  sometimes  bringing  accusations   against  forms   of 
government. 

The  artistic  qualities  of  Anna  Karenina  deserve  the 
same  praise,  with  the  same  reservations,  as  those  of  War 
and  Peace.  We  observe  the  same  sovereign  mastery  of 
detail,  description,  and  psychological  analysis,  the  same 
lack  of  unity,  the  same  network  of  various  stories  which 
draw  the  reader's  attention  along  as  many  confusing 
tracks,  and  the  same  fault  of  prolixity.  The  character 
of  the  principal  heroine  is  dissected  to  its  inmost  re- 
cesses, with  the  most  incomparable  steadiness  of  hand. 
Her  incapability  of  realising  her  position  when,  after 
having  left  her  husband,  she  returns  from  abroad  with 
her  lover,  insists  on  appearing  at  the  theatre,  receives  an 
affront  there,  and  turns  upon  the  man  who  has  done 
everything  in  his  power  to  prevent  her  carrying  out  her 
whim ;  and  the  struggle  between  her  affection  for  her 
lover  and  her  matenial  love,  are  miracles  of  observa- 
tion and  reproduction.  There  is  little  or  no  inven- 
tion ;  the  only  situation  a  little  out  of  the  common  is 
when  the  faithless  wife,  swayed  by  some  violent  emotion, 
brutally  casts  the  acknowledgment  of  her  sin  in  her  hus- 
band's teeth  ;  and  this  idea  Tolstoi  may  have  found  in 
the  work  of  Ostrovski,  and  even  in  that  of  Lermontov 
(see  A  Hero  of  Our  'Times).  But  what  a  wealth  of  cold 
clear-sightedness  and  burning  emotion  we  find  in  the 
description  of  Kitty  Levine's  confinement  and  of  the 
death  of  Nicholas  Levine  !  How  ingenious  is  the  manner 
in  which  these  two  events — which  place  all  those  who 
take  part  in  them  outside  the  ordinary  conditions  of  life, 
raising  them  to  a  higher  level,  carrying  them  into  a  mys- 
terious sphere  where  they  can  hardly  recognise  each 
other,  their  faces  convulsed,  and  their  souls  wrung  by 


TOLSTOI  385 

their  common  anguish — are  brought  into  close  connec- 
tion !  The  whole  truth  is  here,  and  without  a  jarring 
word. 

It  has  been  remarked  that  Tolstoi's  w^orks,  previous 
to  War  and  Peace  and  Anna  Kareninay  contain  no  femi- 
nine figures.  But  henceforward  they  come  in  crowds, 
and  all  of  them  are  charming.  This  pleasure  we  owe, 
no  doubt,  to  the  author's  marriage,  and  to  the  influence 
of  Sophia  Andreievna.  But  is  it  not  strange,  again,  that 
in  his  second  novel  the  author  should  have  made  a  vulgar 
incident  of  adultery  the  foundation  and  starting-point 
of  his  theory  of  social  renovation  ? 

I  have  already  said  that,  after  this  first  expression  of 
his  theory,  the  novelist  seemed  to  have  given  place  for 
ever  to  the  preacher.  Since  the  publication  of  My  Reli- 
giony  the  belief  that  the  incident  of  Levine's  conversion, 
in  Anna  Kareninay  is  autobiographical,  forces  itself  upon 
us.  In  the  course  of  a  mental  process  experienced  by 
many  great  minds — Schopenhauer,  Hartmann,  and  Lewis, 
to  quote  no  others — before  his  time,  Tolstoi  appears  to 
have  passed  through  rationalism  into  an  immediate  rela- 
tion with  Nature  and  Divinity.  Up  to  this  period,  his 
reason  had  struggled  with  his  heart,  the  first  repeating 
the  lessons  learnt  from  the  masters  of  modern  philosophy, 
the  second  holding  communion  with  nature,  and  drawing 
thence  its  faith  in  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  the 
idea  of  a  God.  I  suppose,  and  I  have  already  explained 
why,  that  the  author  has  deceived  himself  as  to  the  reality 
of  this  crisis,  but  nevertheless  he  has  acted  as  if  it  had 
been  real,  and,  having  imagined  that  through  it  he  had 
arrived  at  the  perception  of  a  new  truth,  he  has  used  all 
his  endeavours  to  shed  its  consoling  light  around  him. 
While  in  the  two  books,  entitled  My  Confession  and  My 


386  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

Religiofiy  he  pointed  out  the  origin  of  his  teaching,  and 
laid  its  foundations,  he  undertook  two  huge  works,  one  a 
thorough  criticism  of  dogmatic  theology,  and  the  other  a 
new  translation  of  the  Four  Gospels.  The  spirit  in  which 
he  approached  this  mighty  task  finds  ingenuous  expression 
in  the  following  passage  from  My  Religion  :  ^*  It  was  long 
before  I  could  accustom  myself  to  the  idea  that  after 
eighteen  centuries — during  which  the  law  of  Jesus  had 
been  professed  by  thousands  of  human  beings — after 
eighteen  centuries,  during  the  course  of  which  thousands 
of  men  had  consecrated  their  lives  to  the  study  of  that 
law,  I  should  myself  have  discovered  it  as  some  new 
thing."     The  conquest  of  Mexico  over  again  ! 

To  follow  the  author  along  this  path,  I  am  not  quali- 
fied. A  perusal  of  My  Religion  has  led  me  to  the 
conclusion  that  Tolstoi,  following  the  example  of  Dos- 
toievski,  has  reduced  the  teaching  of  Christ  to  five  com- 
mandments— "  Never  fall  into  a  rage,"  "  Do  not  commit 
adultery,"  ^^  Take  no  oath,"  ^'  Use  no  violence  in  self- 
defence,"  and  '^  Make  no  war,"  and  that  from  these  he 
has  deduced  the  necessity  for  the  almost  wholesale  de- 
struction of  existing  social  institutions,  with  their  consti- 
tuent elements — justice,  army,  taxes,  and  so  forth.  This, 
too,  would  appear  to  be  the  explanation  of  Resurrection^ 
the  subject  of  which  story — in  which  we  see  a  man 
called  to  sit  on  a  jury,  and  condemn  a  w^oman  who  has 
been  his  own  mistress,  whom  he  has  forsaken,  and  thus 
driven  into  a  life  of  vice — is  said  to  have  been  suggested 
to  the  author  by  M.  Koni,  the  criminal  expert.  The 
author's  conclusion  is  that  juries,  as  well  as  every  species 
of  legal  tribunal,  should  be  suppressed.  In  the  same 
work  we  find  a  man  called  on  to  answer  an  accusation 
of  having  stolen  some  brooms  ;  the  owner  of  the  brooms, 


TOLSTOI  387 

when  summoned  as  a  witness,  declares  that  the  legal 
action  has  already  cost  him  twice  the  value  of  the  stolen 
brooms  in  travelling  expenses.  The  author  concludes 
that  thieves  must  be  left  to  ply  their  trade  in  peace.  But 
I  am  not  sure  that  I  have  thoroughly  grasped  his  idea, 
and,  as  far  as  Resurrection  is  concerned,  I  care  not  a 
jot,  so  entrancing  is  Katioucha's  figure,  in  spite  of  the 
little  cast  in  her  eye  !  The  uncertainty  under  which 
I  labour  with  regard  to  the  great  writer's  purely  philoso- 
phical works  is  a  more  serious  matter.  But  here  again 
I  console  myself  with  the  thought  that  it  is  very  likely 
shared  by  the  author  himself  ;  and,  in  fact,  I  have  dis- 
covered, in  looking  over  one  of  his  latest  publications  of 
this  nature.  Religion  and  Morality  (1893),  that  after  having 
admitted  the  existence  of  two  typical  conceptions  of  the 
fundamental  relations  between  man  and  the  universe,  he 
has  been  weak  enough  to  discover,  even  as  he  wrote,  a 
third  conception,  which,  as  deriving  from  the  first,  must 
naturally  claim  the  second  place  ;  whereupon  he  has 
turned  his  back  on  all  three,  and  plunged  headlong  into 
a  refutation  of  an  article  by  Huxley  on  Ethical  Evolu- 
tion, which  he  had  no  doubt  been  lately  reading,  and 
the  memory  of  which  had  thrown  all  his  other  ideas 
into  confusion. 

The  success,  and  a  very  relative  success  it  is,  of 
Tolstoi's  preaching  on  these  subjects  is  largely  due  to  its 
affinity  with  that  sectarian  spirit  so  common  in  the  huge 
empire,  and  also  to  the  encouragement  given  by  his  doc- 
trine to  another  ruling  feature  of  the  national  character 
— its  indolence. 

After  a  certain  fashion,  indeed,  this  propaganda  has 
served  the  interests  of  the  State,  by  drawing  revolu- 
tionary currents,  far   more   dangerous  than  itself,   into 


388  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

its  own  channel.  A  doctrine  which  preaches  abstinence 
from  evil-doing  cannot  cause  real  anxiety  to  any 
government. 

The  author  still  shows  the  highest  mastery  of  his 
craft  in  those  novels  and  tales  with  which,  happily  for 
his  readers,  he  occasionally  breaks  the  series  of  his 
philosophical  treatises  and  exegetical  works,  and  in  all 
of  which  the  same  teaching,  though  under  a  different 
form,  is  carefully  instilled.  He  is  too  apt,  indeed,  to  for- 
get the  precept  which  was  Goethe's  legacy  to  all  artists, 
*'  Depict,  but  do  not  speak  ! "  But  we  must  make  up 
our  minds  to  that.  And  in  spite  of  that  drawback,  the 
Kreutzer  Sonata  and  The  Death  of  Ivan  Illitch — a  two- 
fold plea  against  marriage — are,  to  my  mind,  superior 
to  his  preceding  works.  It  has  been  denied  that 
Pozdnychev,  the  hero  of  the  Kreutzer  Sonata,  who 
murders,  out  of  jealousy,  the  woman  he  has  married  in 
sheer  thoughtlessness,  can  be  regarded  as  his  creator's 
mouthpiece.  The  selection  may  seem  a  strange  one,  but 
in  the  treatise  entitled  Concerning  Life,  which  was  pub- 
lished in  the  same  year  (1889),  and  in  a  postscript  to  the 
Sonata,  published  a  year  later,  in  which  Tolstoi"  per- 
sonally repeats  and  develops  this  Othello's  arguments, 
he  certainly  seems  to  identify  himself  with  the  charac- 
ter. He  points  out  the  opposition  between  our  inner 
consciousness  of  our  own  immortality  and  our  material 
surroundings,  which  all  speak  to  us  of  death,  and  from 
this  he  deduces,  after  a  like  fashion,  the  idea  of  the 
huge  paradox  of  Life.  Our  only  resource,  if  we  would 
escape  from  this  paradox,  is  to  remove  ourselves,  as  far 
as  possible,  beyond  the  borders  of  the  material  world, 
which  serves  as  a  temporary  agent  of  transmission  to 
that   inner   consciousness   of   ours,   destined  to  survive 


TOLSTOI  389 

the  world's  destruction.  If  we  betray  any  tenderness 
for  the  physical  element  of  our  being,  we  condemn 
ourselves  to  suffering  and  to  the  fear  of  death — which 
is  only  a  physical  fact.  Therefore  we  must  eliminate  our 
animal  life,  and,  as  a  first  necessity,  those  sexual  relations 
which  are  its  foundation.  This  truth  has  already  been 
revealed  by  the  Christ,  but  it  has  not  been  realised. 
There  can  be  no  Christian  marriage,  just  as  there  is  no 
Christian  worship,  no  Christian  army,  no  Christian  jus- 
tice, and  no  Christian  State.  A  Christian  cannot  regard 
any  sexual  relation  except  as  a  sin.  He  must  not  marry. 
If  he  is  married  already  he  may  keep  his  wife,  but  he 
must  treat  her  as  his  sister.  Attractive  as  the  theory 
may  appear  to  some  husbands,  its  strict  application  is 
certainly  fraught  with  peril.  But  Tolstoi  is  delighted  with 
it.  He  breaks  off  the  rolling  series  of  his  paradoxes,  all  of 
which  have  already  had  their  day  in  the  novels  of  George 
Sand,  to  exclaim,  by  the  lips  of  Pozdnychev,  *^A11  this 
was  new,  and  astounded  me  sorely  !  "  Yet  what  a  wealth 
of  psychological  intuition  we  find  side  by  side  with  this 
simplicity  !  ^^Ask  an  experienced  coquette  who  has  set 
herself  the  task  of  leading  a  man  astray,  whether  she 
would  rather  be  convicted  in  his  sight  of  falsehood,  per- 
versity, and  cruelty,  or  appear  before  him  in  an  ill-fitting 
gown.  She  will  choose  the  first  alternative  ! "  And 
then  what  superb  touches  of  realism  I  .  Pozdnychev  has 
just  killed  his  wife,  and  is  about  to  throw  himself  upon 
the  lover,  who  has  taken  refuge  in  the  neighbouring 
room,  when  he  notices  that  he  has  no  boots  upon  his 
feet.  He  has  taken  them  off  so  as  to  creep  unobserved 
upon  the  guilty  pair.  A  sense  of  his  ridiculous  position 
overwhelms  him,  and  he  stops  short.  This  is  worth  a 
whole  essay  on  philosophy. 


390  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

The  Popular  Stories^  which  were  at  one  time  Tolstoi's 
own  favourite  works,  have  been  somewhat  severely 
judged  by  Russian  critics.  They  have  complained  that 
the  author  has  failed  to  attain  the  simplicity  at  which 
he  aimed,  and  I  myself  am  inclined  to  think  their  art- 
lessness  somewhat  artificial.  One  of  the  last  tales  pub- 
lished before  Resurrection^  under  the  title  of  Master  and 
Workman,  received  a  more  kindly  verdict.  It  embodies 
the  antique  teaching  of  the  vanity  of  riches.  A  timber 
merchant — rough,  coarse,  and  hard-hearted — goes  to  the 
forest  with  his  man,  loses  his  way,  and  is  caught  in  a 
snowstorm.  He  unharnesses  the  horse,  mounts  it,  and 
rides  away,  leaving  his  humble  companion  to  his  fate. 
The  horse,  failing  to  find  its  way  through  the  tempest, 
brings  him  back  to  the  sledge  on  which  the  workman 
is  huddled,  already  stiff  with  cold,  and  half-buried  in  the 
snow.  With  a  rush,  the  uselessness  of  the  cowardly 
attempt  he  has  just  made  to  save  his  own  life,  and  the 
vanity  of  all  his  past  efforts  to  accumulate  riches,  which 
at  such  a  moment  have  lost  all  value  in  his  eyes,  surge 
over  the  merchant's  soul,  sweep  away  the  artificial 
layer  of  selfishness,  and  stir  his  underlying  instinct  of 
altruism  and  sympathy  for  his  neighbour.  His  sole 
idea,  now,  is  to  bring  back  warmth,  with  his  fur  coat 
and  with  his  own  body,  to  the  poor  wretch  to  whom 
he  had  not  given  a  thought,  a  little  while  ago.  He 
stretches  himself  upon  his  body,  and  there,  a  few  hours 
later,  he  is  found,  in  the  same  posture  ;  he  has  brought 
his  last  undertaking  to  a  successful  issue.  Death  has 
come  to  him,  indeed,  but  the  workman  is  alive.  No  one 
can  fail  to  admire  the  substance  of  the  story,  and  as 
regards  form,  it  attains,  in  its  descriptive  portions,  the 
very  pinnacle  of   art.     But   is  there  any  psychological 


TOLSTOI  391 

explanation  of  the  revulsion  which  takes  place  within 
the  merchant's  soul  ?  None,  I  fear,  any  more  than  in  the 
case  of  Prince  Nekhlioudov  in  Resurrection,  who,  being 
a  retired  officer  of  the  Imperial  Guard,  a  man  about 
town  and  a  debauchee,  bent  on  comfort  and  luxury,  is 
suddenly  seized  with  a  longing  to  marry  his  Katioucha, 
whom  he  must  take  out  of  a  convict  prison  and  a  house 
of  ill-fame.  And  what  lack  of  proportion  we  note  be- 
tween the  conception  of  Master  and  Workman  and  the 
means  chosen  for  its  expression  !  We  have  a  whole 
volume  to  lead  us  up  to  that  one  incident  in  the  forest, 
which  embodies  the  whole  substance  of  the  book  !  The 
Kreutzer  Sonata  and  The  Death  of  Ivan  I  Hitch  both  suffer 
from  the  same  fault  of  construction. 

I  am  much  disposed,  on  the  other  hand,  to  recognise 
in  The  Power  of  Darkness  one  of  the  most  perfect  master- 
pieces which  ever  graced  any  literature,  and  to  per- 
ceive that  Tolstoi"  seems  to  have  imported  in  it  a  new 
form  of  popular  drama,  and  one  capable  of  universal 
application.  The  idea  that  a  fault  may  be  atoned  for 
by  voluntary  confession  and  expiation  is  certainly 
not  a  new  one.  But  none  of  Tolstoi's  predecessors 
has  succeeded,  so  far  as  my  knowledge  goes,  in  ex- 
pressing it  in  so  dramatic  a  fashion,  nor  with  so  much 
true  and  simple  grandeur.  He  gives  us  Nature  herself, 
as  she  lives  and  moves,  taken  from  the  rustic  life,  without 
the  smallest  affectation,  or  the  slightest  touch  of  rhetoric. 
Figures  and  surroundings,  methods  of  speech  and  ways 
of  feeling,  have  all  been  observed,  noted  even  to  their 
most  delicate  shades,  and  rendered  in  a  fashion  that  is 
miraculous.  Though  Nikita,  the  guilty  peasant,  speaks 
the  ordinary  language  of  the  populace,  he  uses  some 
phrases  and  expressions  which  reveal  his  knowledge  of 
26 


392  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

circles  other  than  those  of  his  own  village.  You  realise 
that  a  railway  must  have  been  made  through  the  place, 
and  that  the  foam  of  city  civilisation  has  thus  been  cast,  by 
way  of  the  tavern,  on  to  the  threshold  of  the  peasant's  hut. 
Great  writer  of  the  Russian  soil  !  give  us  more  and 
more  of  such  works  as  these !  Forsake  those  scientific 
inquiries  and  philosophic  speculations  for  which  Heaven 
never  intended  you.  I  am  no  Tourgueniev,  but  I  know 
that  when  I  speak  thus,  I  speak  for  several  millions  of  your 
readers !  By  some  miracle,  your  obstinate  dallying  with 
ideology  has  not  dimmed  your  imagination,  yet,  believe 
me,  you  revolve  within  your  speculations  like  a  squirrel 
in  its  cage,  and  you  never  gain  a  step  !  But  what  of  your 
new  revelation  and  its  teachings  ?  you  will  cry.  So  far 
as  I  can  discern  anything  in  your  doctrine,  it  seems  to 
me  to  combine  the  two  contradictory  elements  of  your 
first  philosophical  ideas,  those  evident  in  your  earliest 
literary  efforts,  the  superiority  of  the  masses  over  the 
individual,  and  the  virtue  of  isolation.  And  to  these, 
even  then  already,  you  were  adding  tirades  against  the 
depravity  of  the  culture  of  city  life.  Remember  your 
own  Ol^nine  !  The  original  theory  has  been  developed, 
no  doubt,  but  do  you  not  realise  that  the  least  acceptable 
feature  of  your  prophetic  vocation  lies  in  the  fact  that  you 
are  a  prophet  in  perpetual  motion  ?  Within  your  cage 
there  is  a  wheel,  and  that  wheel  goes  round  and  round. 
You  have  ended,  in  your  Kreutzer  Sonata^  by  condemning 
marriage,  and  preaching  the  renunciation  of  carnal  love 
as  the  highest  ideal.  And  doubtless  you  have  never 
dreamt,  in  your  divine  simplicity,  of  the  comic  side  pre- 
sented by  this  tardy  conversion  to  asceticism  in  the  case 
of  a  man  of  your  age  and  your  position  !  For  you  are,  I 
believe,  the  father  of  twelve  children  ! 


TOLSTOI  393 

I  know,  indeed,  that  no  ridicule  affects  you,  that  you 
make  but  httle  effort  to  bring  your  own  ideas  into  mutual 
harmony,  and  still  less  to  bring  them  into  agreement 
with  your  own  life.  The  logic  which  extols  physical 
labour  as  the  only  legitimate  means  of  acquisition,  while 
it  brands  any  desire  to  increase  possessions  as  illegiti- 
mate, is  not  exceedingly  self-evident.  What  can  those 
readers  who  recollect  your  Popular  Tales,  and  the  many 
and  varied  resources  for  adding  to  the  pleasures  of  life 
therein  indicated,  think  of  these  new  precepts  of  life, 
with  their  almost  monkish  austerity  ?  They  may  say  the 
wheel  has  turned.  But  they  also  think,  you  may  be 
sure,  that  the  non-resistance  to  evil,  which  is  the  chief 
dogma  of  your  later  gospel,  is  merely  a  fresh  application 
of  your  old  theory  of  the  superiority  of  the  masses.  The 
mass,  which  constitutes  an  elementary  being,  approaches 
more  nearly  to  Nature  than  the  individual,  and  Nature's 
submission  to  every  incident  is  passive.  This,  surely,  is 
your  idea.  Do  you  know  that  it  comes  perilously  near 
utter  materialism  ?  You  escape  it,  I  admit,  by  your 
acknowledgment  of  a  moral  debt;  but  does  not  the  fresh 
contradiction  here  involved  occur  to  you  ?  Contradic- 
tions are  the  most  convenient  things  in  the  world  for 
those  w^ho  do  not  concern  themselves  about  them.  But 
such  men  stand  on  slippery  ground,  and  thus  it  is  that 
you  have  slipped  into  that  Buddhism  which  constitutes, 
as  I  really  believe,  the  only  comparatively  original  phase 
of  your  various  evolutions.  Apart  from  it,  you  have 
simply  unwound  a  skein  w^hich  runs  through  Leopardi 
and  Schopenhauer  right  back  to  the  pessimism  of  Lord 
Byron.  And  to  conclude,  you  have  obeyed  the  watch- 
word ^'  Go  out  among  the  people,"  which  has  led  some 
of  your  contemporaries  into  other  and  worse  folhes.     In 


394  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

your  case,  it  is  Buddhism,  above  all,  which  has  cast  you 
into  the  quagmire,  by  leading  you  to  condemn  the  very 
principle  of  the  State.  It  must  certainly  be  wrong  that 
the  State  should  interfere  in  everything,  if  it  be  true  that 
it  should  interfere  in  nothing.  You  would  have  no 
judges,  no  police  officials,  no  soldiers.  If  men  were  not 
prevented  from  doing  evil,  they  would  not  think  of  doing 
it  at  all.  But  perhaps  I  am  wrong  in  ascribing  these 
ideas  of  yours  to  Buddha.  Should  I  not  rather  accuse 
Jean  Jacques  Rousseau  ?  more  especially  when  I  see 
you  labouring,  scythe  in  hand,  to  save  your  neighbour's 
harvest.  What  are  you  doing  there  ?  What  do  you 
make  of  those  examples  which  should  be  sacred  in  your 
eyes,  of  the  Fakir  and  the  holy  man,  sitting  crouched, 
motionless,  lost  in  meditation,  and  the  contemplation  of 
their  own  toes  ?  But  you  are  no  Hindoo  !  Your  northern 
blood,  and  the  vital  energy  within  you,  carry  the  day, 
and  triumph  over  your  fancies  for  imitation  and  inertia. 
And  again,  I  perceive  that,  according  to  your  idea,  the 
State  should  never  intervene  in  an  agrarian  quarrel,  to 
prevent  the  peasants  from  laying  hands  by  force  on  the 
soil  which  suits  their  purpose  best.  This,  if  I  mistake 
not,  is  the  doctrine  you  expound  in  The  Kingdom  of  God 
is  with  You — the  most  complete  of  all  the  treatises  on 
religious  philosophy  to  which  your  signature  is  appended. 
Here  you  stand  forsaken  both  by  Buddha  and  by  Jean 
Jacques  himself.  And  I  will  not  say  in  whose  company 
you  remain  ! 

To  sum  it  up,  when  you  condemn  science,  and  econo- 
mic and  intellectual  development,  you  condemn  the  very 
essential  idea  of  progress.  You  claim  the  right  to  reduce 
us  to  live  the  primitive  life  of  the  Russian  moujikj  and 
to  find  all  our  pleasure  therein,  like  the  real  Karataiev 


TOLSTOI  395 

whom  you  once  knew.  His  name  was  Soutaiev,  a  stone- 
cutter, and  he  was  your  guest  at  Moscow  some  fifteen 
years  ago.  The  Bojie  Lioudi  (men  of  God),  the  scanty 
adherents  of  one  of  the  innumerable  sects  which  swarm 
in  Russia,  looked  up  to  him  as  their  leader.  In  a  very  curi- 
ous letter,  addressed  to  one  of  your  commentators,  M. 
Schroeder — the  letter  itself,  I  believe,  has  never  been  pub- 
lished, but  a  rough  draft  of  it  in  French  has  been  sent 
me  by  one  of  your  most  fervent  admirers,  M.  Salomon, 
whose  kindness  I  here  acknowledge — you  deny  that  you 
ever  were  the  disciple  of  this  master,  or  that  you  ever 
accepted  the  teachings  of  Bondarev,  another  apostle  of 
the  same  stamp,  who  is  also  supposed  to  have  taught  you 
his  particular  catechism.  Not,  you  add,  that  you  are 
unwilling  to  owe  anything  to  a  humble  inoujik^  but  that 
you  are  privileged  to  know  and  comprehend  the  teach- 
ings of  the  greatest  of  all  Masters,  Jesus  Christ.  When 
you  quoted  the  names  of  these  men  of  simple  mind,  your 
only  object  was  to  testify  that  their  conversation  had  given 
you  more  glimpses  of  the  truth  than  all  the  learned 
books  you  had  ever  read.  But  does  not  this  justify  the 
verdict  of  Max  Nordau  ?  At  the  present  moment  your 
preference  lies  with  the  Doukhoboi^tsy  (spiritual  strugglers), 
although  your  prejudice  against  the  union  of  the  sexes 
would  rather  bring  you  into  connection  with  the  Tlieo- 
dosianSj  and  your  ascetic  habits  draw  you  closer  to  the 
Molokanes  (milk-drinkers),  another  sect  of  the  Raskol, 
You  are  aware  that  this  latter  party  also  claims  to  have 
rediscovered  the  true  doctrine  of  Christ,  and  that  the 
teaching  of  the  Doukhobortsy  is  extremely  vague,  so  vague, 
indeed,  that  when  Professor  Novitski,  of  the  Ecclesias- 
tical Academy  at  Kiev,  succeeded,  in  1882,  in  collecting 
some  information  on  the  subject,  the  book  in  which  he 


39^  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

embodied  it  was  immediately  adopted  as  its  catechism  by 
the  sect,  so  that  the  price  ran  up  to  fifty  roubles  per  copy. 
One  of  the  officers  whose  duty  it  has  been  to  enforce 
reasonable  behaviour  on  these  unfortunate  people,  who, 
as  is  well  known,  refuse  to  perform  military  service  and  to 
pay  taxes,  and  thus  necessitate  the  employment  of  repres- 
sive measures  which  the  Government  itself  regrets  more 
than  any  one  else,  has  described  them  to  me  in  a  manner 
which  places  them  in  a  tolerably  favourable  light.  They 
are  a  set  of  visionaries,  not  without  sympathetic  qualities, 
and  capable,  in  their  ingenuous  simplicity,  of  a  certain 
moral  greatness.  He  related  the  following  colloquy  to 
me  : — 

''  You  will  be  sent  to  Siberia,  a  terrible  country,  where 
not  even  a  dog  can  find  a  living  ! " 

^^  Does  God  live  there  ?  " 

Send  money  to  these  honest  folk  if  you  will,  but  tell 
us  of  Katioucha  ! 

I  have  said  my  say,  and  I  well-nigh  repent  that  I  have 
ventured  to  address  you.  For  memory  tells  me  that,  for 
the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years,  your  teaching,  if  it  has 
occasionally  flown  in  the  face  of  reason,  has  held  its  own 
against  other  and  less  patient  authorities  —  authorities 
which  command  millions  of  wills  and  millions  of  con- 
sciences, and  which  no  man  before  you  has  ever  braved 
with  impunity.  And  I  remember  that  your  ideas  and 
even  your  art,  marvellous  as  it  is,  count  for  little  com- 
pared with  the  example  you  have  set,  and  the  date  you 
have  so  nobly  written  in  the  history  of  your  country. 
With  it  you  inaugurate  the  reign  of  that  mighty  power  of 
freedom  which — whatever  your  Slavophils  may  say,  and 
whatever  you  yourself  may  think — has  renewed  the  face 
of  the  Western  world,  and  is  predestined  to  transfigure 


TOLSTOr  397 

that  of  your  beloved  Russia.  Your  share  in  this  work  has 
been  magnificently  borne.  You  are  a  very  great  man, 
and  my  criticisms  are  infinitely  small,  but  you  will  for- 
give them,  for  the  sake,  and  in  the  name,  of  the  very 
principle  you  represent. 

A  popular  picture  by  Riepine  represents  the  master 
of  lasnaia  Poliana,  driving  a  plough  drawn  by  a 
w^hite  horse,  across  the  plain,  and  leading  another 
horse,  harnessed  to  a  harrow,  behind  him.  With  his 
white  kaftan^  open  at  the  breast,  his  fur  cap  and  high 
boots,  he  looks  like  Ilia  of  Mourom,  the  great  legendary 
toiler,  the  clearer  of  the  national  soil.  And  something 
of  this  there  is  in  the  reality  with  which  the  legend  is 
fused ;  —  waving  harvests  will  grow,  I  doubt  not,  out 
of  the  furrow  ploughed  by  Leo  Nicolaievitch.  But  what 
grain  will  he  have  sown,  drawn  from  what  heavenly 
granary  ?  Doubt  overwhelms  me,  or  rather,  I  should 
say,  an  all  too  evident  sense  of  nothingness  weighs  me 
down.  And  thus  I  reach  the  close  of  this  too  short  in- 
vestigation of  the  sphere  of  intellect  in  contemporary 
Russia.  The  French  writer  who  preceded  me  in  this 
work,  now  over  ten  years  ago,  built  high  hopes  on  its 
result.  ''Days  of  famine  and  weakness,"  he  wrote, 
"  have  fallen  upon  the  country  of  Pascal,  Chateaubriand, 
and  Michelet.  The  Russians  have  come  to  us  in  the 
nick  of  time.  If  any  power  of  digestion  remains  to  us, 
w^e  shall  strengthen  our  blood  at  their  expense.  Let  me 
remind  those  inclined  to  blush  at  the  idea  of  owing  any- 
thing to  the  Barbarians  that  the  intellectual  world  is  one 
huge  association  for  mutual  help  and  charity.  .  .  .  May 
Heaven  grant  that  this  Russian  soul  may  do  good  service 
to  our  ow^n  ! " 

Years  have  rolled  on,  and  no  apparent  response  has 


398  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

been  made  to  M.  de  Vogue's  expectation.  Another  writer 
of  the  same  nationaUty  has  lately  pointed  out;  that 
though  evident  traces  of  the  imitation  of  Russian  models 
do  exist,  as  regards  form,  in  the  work  of  Bourg-et,  Mau- 
passant, and  some  other  novelists,  there  has  been  no 
corresponding  incursion  of  fecundating  thought  into 
French  intelligence  as  a  whole.  ^^  Whose  fault "  ?  I 
would  inquire,  in  the  words  which  form  the  title  of  cer- 
tain studies  of  society,  popular  in  Russia.  The  answer 
seems  to  me  to  be  contained  in  the  closing  pages  of  M. 
de  Vogue's  volume — wherein,  with  a  certain  amount  of 
contradiction,  but  with  most  meritorious  frankness,  the 
author  casts  away  his  earlier  confidence,  and  registers 
his  final  disappointments.  Should  any,  among  all  those 
creators  of  ideas  on  whose  talents  he  had  been  led  to 
found  his  belief  in  the  regenerative  power  of  the  ^'  Rus- 
sian Soul,"  have  justified  his  confidence  so  fully  as  Tol- 
stoi ?  But  here  are  his  conclusions.  ^'  In  vain  do  we 
seek  a  single  original  idea  in  the  revelation  ofi'ered  to  us 
by  the  apostle  of  Toula.  We  only  find  the  first  prattlings 
of  rationalism  in  religion,  and  of  Communism  in  social 
matters.  The  old  dream  of  the  Millennium,  the  tradition 
preserved  since  the  earliest  Middle  Ages,  by  the  Vaudois, 
the  Lollards,  and  the  Anabaptists.  Happy  Russia  !  where 
such  chimeras  still  seem  fresh  and  new." 

Worn  out  chimeras,  alas  !  and  valiant  repetitions  ! 
Tolstoi  sends  us  back  what  we  ourselves  have  been  able 
to  bestow  upon  his  country,  with  a  few  rags  of  fresh 
finery  cast  over  our  old  tattered  garments.  There  is 
nothing  surprising  in  the  fact  that  under  a  disguise  which 
is  often  whimsical,  and  occasionally  absurd,  the  West 
failed  to  recognise  some  of  the  noblest  fruits  of  its  own 
loins,  even  that  human  compassion  which  many  of  us, 


LIESKOV  399 

forgetful  of  the  ^'divine"  George  Sand,  have  chosen 
to  ascribe  to  her  Russian  imitators.  The  extraordinary 
thing  is,  that  hideous  caricatures  should  have  been  ac- 
cepted as  exquisite  revelations.  The  Russians  themselves 
make  no  mistake  about  the  matter,  and  Dostoievski, 
rather  than  deny  the  paternity  of  the  author  of  ConsuelOy 
has  preferred  to  annex  her  to  his  own  country,  and  deli- 
berately call  her  '^  a  Russian  force."  The  expression  will 
be  found  in  his  writings. 

Yet,  amidst  the  common  poverty  of  this  poor  huma- 
nity of  ours,  the  garment  counts  for  something.  And 
my  closing  and  personal  dictum  shall  be  as  follows. 
Modern  Russia  has  produced  men  possessing  a  marvel- 
lous power  of  calling  up  pictures.  She  has  not,  as  yet, 
produced  an  entirely  original  thinker.  From  the  intel- 
lectual point  of  view,  she  has  lived,  hitherto,  on  the  capital 
of  the  West,  and  even  a  century  of  effort  has  hardly  en- 
abled her  to  assimilate,  with  occasional  perversions,  the 
heterogeneous  elements  thus  obtained.  Yet,  on  her  own 
side,  she  has  contributed  certain  methods  of  thought,  and 
more  especially  certain  methods  of  feeling,  which  her 
European  neighbours  do  not,  up  to  the  present  moment, 
appear  capable  of  incorporating.  But  what  is  a  century, 
after  all,  in  the  evolution  of  a  human  race  ?  and  how 
much  longer  a  period  had  to  elapse  before  the  West 
itself  could  recreate  and  appropriate  the  intellectual 
inheritance  of  ancient  Greece  or  Rome  ? 

Tolstoi  has  not  founded  any  literary  school,  properly 
so  called,  in  his  own  country.  The  Russian  who,  after 
having  previously  followed  in  the  steps  of  Chtchedrine, 
appeared  at  one  moment  to  have  advanced  farther  than 
any  other  in  the  path  marked  out  by  the  '^  Prophet 
of    Toula,"    is   an    author    who    is    scarcely   known    to 


400  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

foreign  readers,  and  who  deserves  better  fortune. 
N.  S.  LifiSKOV  (1831-1895),  a  very  productive  writer 
and  novelist,  made  a  somewhat  tardy  appearance  in 
the  world  of  letters.  Until  1861,  he  travelled,  both 
in  Russia  and  abroad,  as  the  agent  of  an  English 
merchant,  Mr.  Scott.  About  this  period  he  revealed 
his  powers  of  literary  criticism  in  a  somewhat  severe 
review  of  Tchernichevski's  novel.  What  is  to  be  Done? 
Shortly  afterwards  two  novels,  published  under  the 
pseudonym  of  Stebnitski,  The  Blind  Alley  {Niekouda)^ 
and  The  Islanders  {Ostrovitanie)  proved  him  a  resolute 
opponent  of  revolutionary  ideas,  against  which  he  en- 
deavoured to  set  up  an  ideal  of  practical  activity.  This 
ideal  was  somewhat  misty  in  its  nature,  and  is  certainly 
not  attained  by  the  heroine  of  one  of  his  stories — a  modern 
Lady  Macbeth,  whose  series  of  crimes,  the  object  of 
which  is  to  bring  her  nearer  to  her  lover,  lead  her  on  to 
suicide.  The  general  note  struck  in  these  early  works 
is  somewhat  melancholy  and  pessimistic,  and  this  deepens 
in  Good  and  Evil  Fortune^  and  in  The  Bewitched  Traveller 
{Otcharovannyi  Strannik\  in  which  a  curious  figure,  a 
kind  of  Russian  Gil  Bias,  is  made  the  pretext  for  an 
exceedingly  varied  and  interesting,  but  by  no  means  flat- 
tering, series  of  descriptions  of  the  national  life.  In  its 
pages  we  meet  with  an  '^  Arbiter  of  Peace,"  who  serves 
the  cause  of  education  by  levying  contributions  on  the 
schools,  and  a  provincial  Governor,  whose  dream  is  to 
conquer  Europe,  and  transfer  the  seat  of  his  administra- 
tion to  Paris  !  Gogol  and  Saltykov  themselves  could 
have  given  us  nothing  better. 

Yet  Lieskov  is  by  no  means  a  writer  with  a  special 
and  deliberate  tendency.  When  he  began  the  great 
novel  which  crowned  his  reputation,  and  endowed  the 


LIESKOV  401 

national  literature  with  its  first  written  description  of 
the  life  of  the  orthodox  clergy,  he  certainly  had  no  deli- 
berate intention  of  finding  fault.  He  was  rather  disposed 
to  sympathy  and  apology.  In  the  person  of  the  principal 
character  of  The  Priests  {^Soborianie)^  the  proto-pope, 
Touberosov,  he  desired  to  draw  an  ideal  ecclesiastic, 
whose  whole  life  and  teaching  were  based  on  love  of  his 
neighbour.  Yet  when  we  read  this  model  priest's  journal, 
a  painful  impression  of  moral  emptiness  results.  At  the 
beginning  we  find  a  few  noble  thoughts,  but  after  these, 
nothing  but  childishness,  empty  triflings,  paltriness,  and 
not  one  single  act  of  Christian  charity.  As  a  whole,  it 
constitutes  a  terrible  bill  of  accusation.  And  Touberosov 
does  not  stand  alone.  Close  beside  him  we  perceive 
the  deacon  Achilles,  a  child  of  the  Steppe,  who  hastily 
casts  off  his  sacerdotal  garments,  to  betake  himself  to  the 
tavern,  wrestle  with  strong  men  at  a  fair,  or  ride  off 
stark  naked  to  the  bath.  And  the  strangely  low  level  to 
which  this  element  of  the  national  life  appears  to  have 
fallen  inspires  us  with  a  fresh  sensation  of  sadness  and 
disgust. 

To  escape  from  this  himself,  and  satisfy  his  personal 
religious  feeling,  which  w^s  very  deep,  Lieskov  has  been 
tempted  to  go  back  to  the  earliest  period  of  Christian 
history  for  the  subjects  of  his  fine  Egyptian  legends.  The 
Mountain  and  The  Fair  Aza,  and  here  he  has  found  him- 
self on  the  same  ground  with  Tolstoi.  At  the  same 
time,  in  a  story  entitled  At  the  End  of  the  World  {Na 
Kraiou  Svieta),  he  sketched  the  subject  of  Master  and 
Servant  some  twenty  years  before  that  tale  appeared. 
But  Lieskov  never  dreams  of  excluding  modern  science 
and  culture  from  that  practical  activity  of  which  he 
conceives  altruism  to  be  the  true  foundation.    On  this 


402  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

point  the  divergence  between  his  view  and  Tolstoi's  is 
clear  and  unmistakable.  His  legends  are  nothing  but 
allegories.  He  would  like  to  see  modern  men  full  of 
the  spirit  which  animated  the  Christians  of  the  heroic 
times,  but  he  believes  this  spirit  can  be  adapted  to  the 
forms  of  modern  life,  the  superiority  of  w^hich  he  does 
not  deny. 

As  a  publicist,  Lieskov  showed  particular  activity  in 
and  about  the  year  1880.  He  handled  a  great  number  of 
questions,  social,  religious,  and  political ;  and  his  studies 
of  the  Raskol  attracted  particular  attention. 

To  such  of  my  readers  as  may  desire  a  sample  of  his 
powers  as  a  humorist,  I  would  recommend  Dear  Love, 
an  entertaining  portrait  of  a  Russian  country  bumpkin, 
who  falls  under  the  suspicion  of  Nihilism,  because  he 
has  fled  across  the  frontier  to  escape  the  advances  of 
an  English  governess,  who  will  insist  on  scenting  him 
with  eau-de-Cologne  ;  with  his  wild  beard,  his  mighty 
appetite,  and  his  half- savage  instincts,  he  wanders  up 
and  down  the  streets  of  Paris,  discovering  no  charm 
whatever  in  the  marvels  of  civilisation  he  encounters. 


CHAPTER    XI 

CONTEMPORARY   LITERATURE 

For  the  last  ten  years  a  sudden  stopmge  has  taken  place 
in  that  intellectual  current  which  had  pyreviously  flowed 
from  Western  to  Eastern  Europe,*  and  w^hereby  the 
East  had  been  giving  back,  under  a  new  form,  the  ideas 
drawn  from  the  elder  source.  This  system  of  exchange, 
in  which  Western  Europe  certainly  found  an  advantage 
of  its  own,  has  now  almost  entirely  disappeared.  The 
works  of  Tourgueniev,  Dostoievski,  and  Gontcharov  still 
are  seen  in  the  hands  of  French,  English,  and  German 
readers  ;  and  Tolstoi's  writings  continue  to  find  their  way 
across  every  frontier.  But,  even  in  these,  foreign  interest 
is  not  so  fresh  and  constant  as  in  former  days ;  while 
amongst  the  writers  of  the  younger  g^eneration — and  the 
impression  his  writings  have  produced  has  been  of  a  some- 
what mixed  description — Tchekhov  is  almost  the  only  one 
whose  work  has  even  found  admittance  to  foreign  review^s. 
All  the  rest  remain  utterly  Ux^iknown.  There  is  no  de- 
mand for  anything  they  write.  Have  they  nothing  worth 
offering  ?  The  question  is  thus  answered  by  a  very 
far-seeing  critic,  fellow-worker  withjr'M.  Pypine  in  the 
great  History  of  Slav  Literature^  which  has  gained  so 
universal  a  reputation  for  its  authors.  In  the  European 
Messenger^  March  1888,  M.  Spasowicz  writes  as  follows  : — 
''  We  have  grown  very  poor  in  the  matter  of  talent. 
Our  intellectual  level  has  fallen.     Our  conception  of  the 


404  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

simplest  problems  of  general  existence  has  narrowed. 
We  have  no  ideal,  whether  in  ethics  or  aesthetics ;  utter 
selfishness,  naked  and  open,  to  the  point  of  cynicism, 
reigns  supreme  in  our  world  of  thought." 

But  where  is  the  reason  of  this  downfall  ?  I  turn 
to  another  Russian  writer,  M.  Milioukov,  a  first-rate 
historian,  who  acted  for  some  years  as  literary  critic  to 
the  London  AthencEum..  He  likens  the  social  life  of  his 
own  country  to  a  river,  the  bed  of  which  has  been  sud- 
denly choked  by  some  irremovable  obstruction.  And  to 
this  he  ascribes  the  consecutive  phenomena  of  stagna- 
tion, sterility,  and  corruption,  apparent  in  the  intellectual 
and  literary  w^orld.  The  existence  of  these  phenomena 
is  only  too  evident.  Even  literary  criticism  has  broken 
with  the  glorious  traditions  of  Bielinski  and  Dobro- 
Houbov.  Messrs.  Pypine  and  Skabitchevski  forsake  the 
ungrateful  soil  of  present-day  production,  and  turn  back 
to  the  original  sources  of  the  national  literature.  Mik- 
hailovski  makes  the  character  of  Ivan  the  Terrible  his 
special  study.  And  these  princes  of  the  critical  art  are 
the  elder  men — the  veterans  of  bygone  literary  battles. 
The  young  ones  do  not  even  care  to  seek  employment 
for  an  activity  which  is  steadily  waning.  Indifference 
appears  to  overwhelm  their  souls,  and  a  premature 
senility  seems  the  distinctive  feature  of  their  intellectual 
temperament.  Their  organs.  The  Northern  Messenger 
and  The  Week,  are  devoted  to  the  justification  of  this 
state  of  mind,  and  the  establishment  of  a  theory  on 
which  it  may  be  based.  One  of  them,  M.  Volynski, 
in  a  thick  volume  published  in  1895,  has  invoked  the 
teaching  of  Tolstoi  in  support  of  his  repudiation  of  the 
impassioned  work  of  the  great  literary  ancestors  whose 
names  I  have  just  mentioned,  and  his  endeavour  to  steer 


STAGNATION  405 

the  younger  generation  into  the  path  of  the  symboHsts 
and  the  decadents. 

Frankly  speaking,  I  have  no  belief  in  the  existence 
of  the  obstacle  indicated  by  M.  Milioukov — an  obstacle 
the  nature  of  which  may  be  easily  divined — or,  at  all 
events,  I  cannot  admit  the  decisiveness  of  its  effect  on 
surrounding^circumstances.  My  readers  will  not  suspect 
me  of  any  sympathy  with  the  morally  repressive  system 
which,  under  Ahe  reign  of  Nicholas  II.,  recalls  the 
memories  ahd  examples  left  him  by  his  dread  ancestor. 
But  the  very  evocation  of  that  bygone  time  prevents 
me  from  sharing  the  view  of  the  present  held  by  the 
brilliant  contrib,utor  to  the  Athenceum,  It  was  the  reign 
of  Nicholas  I.,  ^^ith  all  its  severe  measures,  its  Censor's 
scissors,  its  han\icu£fs  and  its  muzzles,  the  "  cosy  dun- 
geons" reserved  for  Bielinski,  the  convict  prisons  that 
opened  their  dAsrs  to  Dostoievski,  which  witnessed  the 
mighty  intellectual  expansion  to  which  Russian  literature 
owes  its  positiQn  in  the  civilised  world. 

His  successor's  rule  has  induced  the  recurrence  of 
another  phenomenon,  the  consequences  of  which,  as 
regards  th^^intellectual  development  of  the  country,  are 
somewhat  serioiM.  We  observe  a  fresh  stream  of  emi- 
gration, similar  to  that  which  once  carried  such  men 
as  Tchadaifev  and  Herzen  to  London  and  to  Paris. 
Milioukov,  not  so  long  ago,  was  teaching  history  at 
Sophia.  ^  Kovalevski,  who,  like  him,  was  reckoned  one 
of  the  most  brilliant  professors  at  the  Moscow  University, 
has  settled  in  France.  A  literary  circle,  comprising  a 
whole  constellation  of  talent,  driven  far  from  its  natural 
centre,  ha§  gathered  in  Paris  under  the  roof  of  M.  Ivan 
Chtchoukine,  a  young  and  learned  man,  whose  future 
seems  full  of  brilliant  promise.     Here  M.  de  Roberty, 


4o6  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

whom  M.  Izoulet,  the  eminent  professor  of  the  College 
de  France,  has  lately  hailed  as  one  of  his  own  masters, 
expounds  a  somewhat  subversive  doctrine  of  sociology, 
and  a  philosophy  occasionally  rather  alarming  in  its 
nature.  Here  M.  Onieguine — the  founder  of  a  Pouch- 
kine  museum,  which  Parisian  eyes  have  been  the  first 
to  behold — explains  and  comments  on  the  works  of  his 
beloved  poet.  Here  may  be  met  M.  Skalkovski — a 
statesman  of  importance,  a  writer  enjoying  great  ad- 
miration among  his  fellow-countrymen — with  his  spon- 
taneous wit  and  inexhaustible  stores  of  knowledge. 
Thanks  to  these  gentlemen,  I  have  had  three  of  the 
richest  possible  Russian  libraries  at  my  command,  on 
the  banks  of  the  Seine.  And  a  fourth,  at  Beaulieu,  has 
been  collected  by  M.  Kovalevski.  I  must  not  omit  from 
this  list  of  self-made  exiles  the  distinguished  geographer. 
General  Venioukov,  and  M.  Vyroubov,  who  at  one  time 
collaborated  with  Littre,  and  edited  the  Revue  de  Philo- 
Sophie  Positive  with  Robin  (1867  to  1883).  M.  Vyroubov, 
who  is  specially  suited  to  the  study  of  scientific  prob- 
lems, has  devoted  himself,  latterly,  to  Natural  Science. 
One  of  the  few  Russians  who,  in  recent  times,  has  ac- 
quired world-wide  fame  in  connection  with  this  last- 
named  branch  of  learning,  M.  Mietchnikov,  has  also 
become  a  dweller  in  France.  The  Russian  novel,  too,  has 
representatives  in  that  country,  and  it  is  in  Paris  and  in 
French  that  Countess  Lydia  Rostoptchine — daughter  of 
the  Countess  Eudoxia,  referred  to  in  an  earlier  chapter — 
has  published  her  latest  stories. 

But  except  for  this  resemblance,  the  present  epoch 
has  nothing  in  common,  from  the  intellectual  point  of 
view,  with  the  perjod  the  political  traditions  of  which  it 
has  reproduced.     And  hence,  I  believe,  I  have  the  right 


INERTIA  40; 

to  conclude  that  these  same  traditions  cannot  be  made 
solely  and  directly  responsible  for  the  literary  decadence 
which  has  accompanied  their  present  recrudescence. 
The  essential  causes  of  this  decadence  appear  to  me  to 
b-e  connected  with  a  far  more  general  order  of  things. 
The  method  of  progress  which  consists  in  an  alternation 
of  forward  leaps  and  stationary  periods,  is  characteristic 
both  of  the  nature  and  of  the  known  history  of  the 
people  once  ruled  by  Peter  the  Great.  In  Russia, 
when  the  elements  of  the  national  activity  have  been 
worked  up  to  an  extreme  point  of  tension  and  productive 
energy,  a  sort  of  spontaneous  decomposition  always  seems 
to  set  in.  The  same  phenomenon  may  be  observed, 
though  on  a  more  moderate  scale,  in  western  countries. 
Recollect  the  period  of  comparative  inertia  and  reaction 
which  followed,  after  1850,  on  the  intense  intellectual 
excitement  of  the  preceding  years  in  France.  In  Russia, 
even  as  early  as  just  aftepj-§^i,  when  the  relatively  liberal 
system  of  Alexander  1 1. >  was  at  its  height,  the  Liberals 
and  the  narodniki  (friends  of  the  people),  otherwise  the 
agrarian  socialists,  who  had  marched  shoulder  to  shoulder 
under  the  banner  of  emancipation,  fell  apart,  under  the 
influence  of  Slavophilism,  which  imparted  its  own  special 
colour  to  that  love  of  the  people  more  ostensibly  pro- 
fessed in  one  camp  than  in  the  other. 

In  the  eyes^of  these  Russian  Socialists,  who  repudiate 
all  the  history  of  their  country  subsequent  to  the  reign  of 
Peter  the  Great,  the  populace,  as  it  stands,  constitutes  the 
Alpha  and  Omega  of  the  national  life.  The  Liberals,  on 
the  other  hand,  look  on  the  people  as  an  ignorant  and  bar- 
barous mass.  The  Liberals,  therefore,  sought  political  re- 
forms, fitted  to  raise  the  intellectual  level  of  the  populace. 

The  Socialists  cried  out  for  social  xQioxvixs^  and  for  the  main- 
27 


408  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

tenance  of  the  despotism  founded  on  democracy.  After 
1 87 1,  a  new  group  of  Radical  dissidents  made  its  appear- 
ance. This  party  held  that  to  claim  social  reforms  before 
political  reforms  was  to  set  the  cart  before  the  horse.  It 
adopted  the  theories  of  Karl  Marx,  and  put  forward  the 
principle  that  Capitalism  was  a  necessary  stage  on  the 
road  to  Collectivism.  Matters  stbod  thus,  when  the 
catastrophe  of  188 1  fell  like  a  thunderbolt,  literally  choking 
the  nation's  breath,  and  suspending  its  normal  existence 
for  quite  ten  years,  and  the  symptoms  of  decomposi- 
tion already  apparent  grew  worse  and  worse.  In  1891, 
the  strain  relaxed ;  there  was  a  kind  of  painful  recoil,  to 
which  society  voluntarily  adapted  itself.  A  fresh  out- 
break of  famine,  another  intervention  on  Tolstoi's  part, 
and  the  discussions  arising  therefrom,  restored  the  public 
mind  to  life.  But  at  once  the  underhand  conflict  recom- 
menced, between  Vassili  Vorontsov,  editor  of  The  Wealth  of 
Russia  {Rousskoie  Bogatstvo),  Pypine,  who  contributed  to 
the  European  Messenger^  and  Soloviov,  who  forsook  the 
Slavophils  for  the  Liberals,  and  declared  himself  an 
agrarian  individualist,  a  partisan  of  the  system  of  great 
properties,  and  an  enemy  of  Collectivism.  Then  fresh 
groups  formed.  There  were  Old  Collectivists  or  New 
Collectivists,  who,  under  Vorontsov's  leadership,  styled 
themselves  Populists^  and  endeavoured  to  prove  that 
Capitalism  ruins  the  peasants  by  destroying  their  domestic 
industries  ;  Individualists,  followers  of  Marx  and  Engels, 
and  supporters  of  a  philosophic  doctrine  known  in  Russia 
as  ^'  Economic  Materialism  "  ;  Individualists,  again,  of  the 
new  school  of  Soloviov,  who  preached  a  paradoxical 
combination  of  Socialism  and  Materialism,  supposed  to 
lead  the  modern  world  to  a  true  understanding  of  the 
Christian    doctrine ;    a   philosophical   Tower    of    Babel, 


DECADENCE  409 

shaking  on  its  foundations,  and  crumbling  away  in  empty 
arguments.  Not  one  really  productive  idea,  not  a  formula 
that  can  be  accepted  by  the  general  mind,  always,  and 
in  all  places,  division,  molecular  disaggregation,  and,  as 
a  necessary  consequence,  sheer  inertia. 

Another  cause  of  this  I  see — also  quite  independent 
of  the  political  order  of  the  day ;  the  development  of 
industrial  enterprise,  and  the  sudden  rush  of  almost  the 
whole  of  the  contemporary  national  force  in  that  direc- 
tion. The  prodigies  ah-eady  performed  are  within  general 
knowledge.  The  valley  of  the  Don  has  been  transformed 
into  another  Belgium  ;  the  steel  ribbon  of  the  Trans- 
Siberian  railway  rolls  its  length  down  to  the  very  coasts 
of  the  Pacific  Ocean  !  At  the  same  time — and  this  is  in 
agreement  with  the  present  system  of  moral  pressure 
— the  curriculum  of  the  schools  has  been  modified  so 
as  to  increase  the  amount  of  technical  instruction,  at  the 
expense  of  the  time  formerly  given  to  general  education  ; 
college  pupils  have  no  opportunity,  now,  for  writing 
verses.  The  statesmen  who  produced  novels  and  com- 
posed plays  between  two  diplomatic  missions  have  died 
out.     Nowadays,  everybody  builds  factories  1 

However  that  may  be,  at  the  present  moment  Russian 
literature  subsists  principally  on  translations.  In  a 
book  published  in  1892,  and  dealing  with  this  decadence, 
which  nobody  dreams  of  denying,  the  poet  Merechkovski 
has  made  an  effort  of  his  own  to  lead  the  younger  gene- 
ration to  adopt  the  esoteric  formulae  of  the  French  sym- 
bolism, in  the  hope  that  in  them  it  may  find  the  elements 
of  a  fresh  season  of  springing  growth.  He  appears  to 
have  converted  a  few  young  writers.  But  they  have 
only  found  it  still  more  difficult  to  catch  the  public  ear. 
My  readers  will  guess  that  of  the  threefold  inheritance 


4IO  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

left  us  by  Pouchkine,  Gogol,  and  Bielinski,  the  legacy  of 
the  first-named  author  is  that  which  has  suffered  the 
most  noticeable  loss.  Speaking,  in  an  earlier  chapter, 
of  Nekrassov  and  Koltsov,  I  referred  to  the  great  lyric 
current  which  issued  from  the  intellectual  whirlpool  of 
1840,  and  pointed  out  its  limits.  In  the  years  between 
1850  and  i860,  a  subsidiary  current  appeared  in  the 
satirical  newspapers  of  that  day  —  The  Whistle^  The 
Sparky  The  Awakening — which  seemed  for  a  moment 
to  contain  the  germs  of  a  school  of  political  poetry  in- 
spired by  Heine  and  Boerne.  Towards  1870  this  flood, 
too,  died  away  on  the  sand,  and  the  whimsical  work 
of  Kouzma  Proutkov  (the  no7n  de  plume  adopted  by 
Count  A.  Tolstoi'  and  the  brothers  Jemtchoujnikov), 
despite  its  popularity,  is  but  a  doubtful  monument  in 
its  honour,  full  of  jokes  and  ironical  artlessness,  the  point 
of  which  is  not  always  easily  discovered.  The  editor  of 
The  Whistle y  V.  S.  Kourotchkine— the  Henri  Mounier  of 
Russia — has  also  won  reputation  by  his  translation  of 
Beranger.  This  intellectual  shrinkage,  the  symptoms 
and  causes  of  which  I  have  endeavoured  to  explain,  has, 
on  the  other  hand,  given  rise,  in  the  domain  of  the 
national  poetry,  to  a  phenomenon  of  which  the  literatures 
of  other  European  countries  strike  me  as  presenting  no 
example. 

In  an  out-of-the-way  corner — a  sanctuary  hemmed 
about  with  silence  and  solitude — a  knot  of  the  elect  still 
carries  on  the  worship  of  which,  towards  the  close  of 
his  career,  Pouchkine  had  made  himself  High  Priest. 
These  exponents  of  '^  art  for  art's  sake,"  as  he  himself  de- 
scribed it,  share  his  ignorance  and  scorn  of  the  noise  of  the 
outside  world — the  feelings  and  passions  of  that  general 
mass  which,  in  its  turn,  knows  naught  of  the  mysteries 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  POUCHKINE  411 

they  profess.  What  is  the  number  of  these  worshippers  ? 
I  have  made  no  close  reckoning.  The  temple  in  which 
they  carry  on  their  secret  rite  is  certainly  not  a  large 
one.  Our  visit  to  it  will  not  delay  us  long.  On  the 
very  threshold,  a  memory  comes  back  to  me,  and  a 
shiver  checks  my  forward  course.  Some  years  ago,  I 
went  to  pay  a  visit,  in  St.  Petersburg,  to  a  member  of 
the  officiating  priesthood  of  the  tiny  chapel.  Just  as 
I  was  about  to  cross  his  threshold,  my  attention  was 
attracted  by  an  inscription  above  the  entrance-door.  It 
ran,  Tiouremnoie  Otdielenie  (Prisons  Department),  and  I 
w^as  informed  that  the  offices  of  the  Prisons  Adminis- 
tration shared  the  edifice  with  those  of  the  Censure — 
and  the  Head  of  the  Censure  was  the  poet  I  had  come 
to  seek  !  CaUing  upon  the  shade  of  Lermontov,  I  beat 
a  hasty  retreat  !  I  have  been  sorry  for  it  since,  for 
in  doing  so  I  had  turned  my  back  on  the  sanctuary 
itself.  '^What?"  you  cry,  "are  all  of  them  Censors, 
jailers  of  human  thought,  carrying  lyres  in  one  hand 
and  scissors  in  the  other,  turning  about  from  the  altar 
to  sift  out  inappropriate  pages  ?  "  Yes  !  Most  of  them, 
alas !  and  the  most  eminent  !  Their  art  is  delicate 
indeed,  but  you  cannot  expect  the  sacred  flame  of  their 
inspiration  to  burn  very  high,  seeing  one  of  their  chief 
functions  was  to  brandish  the  extinguisher  !  None  of 
them  are  young  at  the  present  time.  But  were  they  ever 
young  ?  Those  in  the  first  rank  belong,  or  belonged 
— for  death  has  made  great  gaps  amongst  them  during 
the  last  few  years — to  Bielinski's  generation.  But  no 
one  would  suspect  it,  to  so  utterly  different  a  w^orld  do 
they  appear  to  pertain. 

In  1803,  when  Pouchkine  was  four  years  old,  FiODOR 
IVANOVITCH  TiOUTCHEV  was  born,  and  he  passed  away  in 


412  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

1876.  What  was  he  doing  in  1822,  when  the  author  of 
Eugene  Onieguine  was  passing  into  the  starry  orbit  of 
romanticism,  and  following  the  steps  of  Byron  ?  He 
had  just  entered  the  diplomatic  service,  and  left  Russia, 
whither  he  did  not  return  till  twenty  3^ears  later,  when  he 
assumed  the  duties  of  Director  of  the  Foreign  Censorship. 
During  the  interval,  he  published  a  translation  of  Horace, 
and  some  poetry  inserted  in  various  periodicals,  over  the 
signature  of  ^^T.  T." 

Up  till  the  year  1854,  his  talents  and  his  name  were 
equally  unknown  to  the  general  public.  But  at  that  period, 
Tourgueniev  encouraged  him  to  publish  a  work  which 
created  a  great  sensation.  Its  dominant  note,  especially 
in  the  pieces  entitled  Nature,  Spring,  An  Autumn  Even- 
ing, and  The  Deserted  Villa,  is  one  of  rigid  and  closely- 
reasoned  Pantheism.  The  poet  never  drops  this  note, 
except  in  a  few  occasional  pieces,  in  which  his  natural 
frigidity  appears  to  melt  under  the  breath  of  Slavophilism. 
In  his  address  To  my  Slav  Brothers,  composed  on  the 
occasion  of  the  visit  of  the  Slav  deputies  to  the  Ethnogra- 
phical Exhibition  at  Moscow,  in  The  Flag  on  the  Bosphorus, 
and  in  The  Black  Sea,  he  has  given  a  bold  support  to  Kho- 
miakov.  The  famous  dictum,  '^  We.  cannot  understand 
Russia,  we  must  believe  in  her,"  is  his.  The  verses  in 
which  it  occurs  lack  neither  strength  nor  beauty.  Those 
in  which  he  has  described  Nature  as  it  appears  in  Russia, 
are  almost  equal  to  Pouchkine's  best  efforts  in  the  same 
style.  But,  to  my  thinking,  they  do  not  possess  that  name- 
less something  which  constitutes  the  essential  value  of  a 
work  of  art  ;  there  is  no  infectious  emotion,  no  illumi- 
nating power.  And  how  wretched  are  those  political 
epigrams  and  aphorisms  which  have  earned  their  author 
the  reputation  of  a  wit  !     To    our   modern    ears,  they 


TIOUTCHEV:  MAIKOV  413 

ring  as  false  as  an  old-fashioned  air  played  on  a  barrel 
organ. 

I  may  be  mistaken  in  my  judgment,  for,  though  the 
single  volume  which  contains  the  author's  complete  work 
left  me  cold  and  unresponsive,  I  have  seen  a  Russian 
reader  shed  tears  over  some  of  its  pages.  But  the 
number  of  his  fellow-countrymen  likely  to  share  this 
emotion  is,  I  believe,  a  small  one.  Apart  from  his  official 
functions,  and  even  in  his  manner  of  discharging  them, 
Tioutchev,  so  I  have  been  assured,  was  a  very  honest 
gentleman.  In  Russia,  and  even  in  France,  he  still  re- 
tains a  certain  following  of  admirers,  who  make  up  for 
the  smallness  of  their  number  by  their  fervour.  He  has 
had  a  biographer,  M.  Akssakov,  who  has  gone  so  far  as 
to  describe  him  as  a  national  i^OQi,  par  excellence.  I  should, 
no  doubt,  have  some  difficulty  in  convincing  M.  Akssakov 
that  a  man  who  wrote  French  so  well  as  to  possess  a 
personal  style  of  his  own,  and  who  neither  boasted  nor 
slandered  himself,  like  Pouchkine,  when  he  declared  that 
he  found  it  easiest  to  express  himself  in  this  language, 
— that  such  an  Occidental,  in  fact,  cannot,  in  spite  of  his 
undoubted  talent,  have  been  more  than  a  skilful  rhymester 
in  Russian.  And  M.  Salomon,  who  is  now  preparing  to 
introduce  the  poet  to  French  readers,  by  means  of  a 
translation  into  which  he  has  put  all  the  conscientious- 
ness and  the  art  of  his  delicate  literary  talent,  will  not 
thank  me  for  expressing  this  conviction. 

Last  year  witnessed  the  departure  of  one  of  Tioutchev's 
most  brilliant  followers,  Apollonius  Nicolai£vitch 
Maikov  (1821-1898),  who  resided  m  Italy  at  the  period  of 
the  great  literary  struggles  of  the  ''forties," could  not  make 
up  his  mind  whether  he  should  take  up  painting  or  poetry, 
and  finally  decided  in  favour  of — the  Directorship  of  the 


414  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Foreign  Censure  !  Yet  his  study  of  the  Roman  antiques 
had  inspired  him  with  some  attempts  at  art  criticism 
(Roman  Sketches^  iS^2)^  some  anthological  poetry,  and 
even  certain  more  ambitious  compositions  in  the  epic  style, 
such  as  Savonarola^  Clei^mont  Cathedral^  and  The  Queen^s 
Confession.  They  are  frank  imitations.  After  his  return 
to  Russia,  Maikov  was  absorbed  by  his  professional  duties. 
The  Censor's  scissors  were  kept  very  busy  just  at  that 
period,  until  the  Crimean  War  drove  his  oftice  into  the 
background  and  brought  the  poet  down  off  the  top  of  the 
Column  of  Trajan,  where  he  seemed  to  have  fixed  his  home. 
He  published  a  book  appropriate  to  the  occasion,  which  he 
called  The  Year  18^4,  fell  out  with  the  West,  and  allowed 
the  Slavophil  and  Neo-Grecian  current  to  carry  him  away. 
This  new  stage  of  his  literary  career  is  marked  by  the 
publication  of  two  collections  of  Neo-Greek  poetry,  fol- 
lowed, between  i860  and  1880,  by  translations  of  old 
Slavonic  poems.  By  insensible  degrees,  Maikov  was 
drawn  into  the  contemporary  conflict  of  political  thought 
and  passion.  The  Princess ^  the  most  original  of  his  poetic 
works,  bears  witness  to  this  fact.  A  great  Russian  lady 
has  a  daughter,  the  fruit  of  an  intrigue  with  a  Parisian 
Jesuit.  The  girl,  brought  up  away  from  her  mother, 
becomes  a  Nihilist.  One  evening,  at  a  ball,  the  mis- 
guided young  creature  comes  to  her  mother,  insists  that 
she  shall  supply  her  with  certain  important  documents, and 
threatens,  if  she  refuses,  to  reveal  the  secret  of  her  own 
birth  to  the  Third  Section  (the  superior  police).  The 
great  lady  faints  away  and  dies — in  stanzas  of  the  most 
correct  description.  I  will  not  dwell  upon  the  sub- 
ject. The  poet  had  certainly  left  his  best  inspiration  on 
the  top  of  his  column.  He  proved  it,  before  his  death, 
by  his  completion  of  two  lyric  dramas,  The  Three  Deaths^ 


MAIKOV:  FCETH  415 

and  The  Two  Worlds^  the  rough  sketches  of  which  had 
remained  among  his  papers  since  his  Itahan  days,  and 
which  may  fairly  be  considered  his  best  works.  In  both 
these  dramas,  we  see  the  struggle  between  the  Greco- 
Roman  and  the  Christian  world.  In  the  first  we  have 
the  cold  though  well-modelled  figures  of  three  represen- 
tatives of  the  expiring  Pagan  civilisation — Lucan,  the  poet; 
Seneca,  the  philosopher  ;  and  Lucius,  the  epicurean  ;  all 
three  condemned  to  death  by  Nero  for  their  share  in  the 
conspiracy  of  Piso.  In  The  Two  Worlds,  the  chief  charac- 
ters are  Decius,  the  patrician,  who  poisons  himself  in 
the  midst  of  a  banquet  in  his  palace,  and  the  tender  and 
dreamy  Lida,  who  represents  the  Spirit  of  Christianity. 
Between  the  two  appears  a  witless  Juvenal.  It  is  a  world 
of  statues,  with  all  the  polish  and  brilliancy  of  marble, 
but  soft  and  uncertain  in  outline.  The  artist's  soul  had 
travelled  back  to  the  walls  of  Rome,  but  his  hand  seems 
to  have  chiselled,  not  in  the  quarries  of  Carrara,  but 
in  the  ice  of  the  Neva.  The  atmosphere  of  his  gallery  is 
bitter  cold. 

Athanasius  Athansievitch  Fceth  (1815-1860), — his 
father's  name  was  Chenchine,  and  he  was  a  natural  son — 
the  author  of  translations,  now  forgotten,  of  Juvenal, 
Horace,  Goethe,  and  Shakespeare,  stands,  in  his  greater 
delicacy  and  sentiment  (French  grace  and  German  senti- 
ment), a  yet  more  isolated  figure  amongst  the  men  and 
things  of  his  period.  He  cheerfully  tuned  his  little  flute 
to  the  music  of  Petrarch,  or  Lessing,  or  that  of  the  poet 
of  the  rose  gardens,  the  Persian  Saadi.  Forgetful,  in  his 
retreat,  of  the  tempest  w4:iich  was  shaking  most  minds  and 
consciences,  or  unaware  of  its  existence,  he  sang,  for 
thirty  years,  the  beauty  of  fair  women,  the  joy  of  life,  the 
charms  of  summer  nights  and  winter  landscapes  {Even^ 


41 6  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

m£-s   and  Nights   and    Snow-covered  Fields),   and  wrote 
madrigals  for  Ophelia, 

Silence  has  fallen  upon  him.  It  has  fallen,  now,  on 
almost  all  those  tuneful  voices  which  till  lately  woke  ever 
so  feeble  an  echo  of  the  mighty  harmonies  of  bygone 
days.  But  a  few  months  ago  (October  i8,  1898),  death 
laid  his  hand  on  James  Petrovitch  Polonski  (1820-1898), 
the  friend  of  Tourgu^niev,  the  foster-child  of  the  Idealist 
circle  at  Moscow.  His  earliest  collection  of  poetry,  The 
Scales,  dates  from  1844.  Later  he  resided  for  a  lengthened 
period  in  the  Caucasus,  where  he  edited  an  official  news- 
paper, and  published  three  more  books,  the  last  of  which 
bears  the  Georgian  title  oi  Sazandar  (The  Bard),  From 
1856  to  i860  he  lived  in  Rome  and  Paris,  and  prepared 
himself  to  imitate  Tioutchev  and  Maikov  by  undertaking, 
in  his  turn,  the  duties  of  the  Censorship  of  the  Foreign 
Press,  and  sitting  on  the  General  Council  of  Press 
Management.  This  did  not  prevent  him  from  sending 
poetical  contributions  to  most  of  the  literary  organs  of 
the  period,  all  of  which  welcomed  him  heartily,  for  he 
belonged  to  no  party.  His  earHest  literary  associations 
had  left  him  with  a  vague  belief  in  the  progressive 
perfectibility  of  the  national  existence.  He  shared  the 
general  disappointment,  but  found  a  melancholy  con- 
solation in  a  world  of  dreams  which  his  fancy  peopled 
with  ideals  as  delicate  and  fragile  as  children's  toys. 
Several  of  his  poems,  full  of  melody  and  ring,  very 
innocent,  and  so  simple  that  the  memory  of  a  boy  of 
twelve  years  old  may  easily  retain  them,  run  a  fair  chance 
of  remaining  popular.  The  most  celebrated,  which  re- 
minds one  somewhat  of  Othon  Roquette's  Le  Voyage  de 
Noces  dii  Maitre  Forestier,  is  entitled  The  Musical  Cricket, 
The  cricket  falls  in  love  with  a  nightingale's  voice,  con- 


NADSOHN  417 

trives  to  discover  the  whereabouts  of  the  bewitching  bird, 
joins  company  with  it,  and  is  promptly  devoured  !  In  his 
more  ambitious  compositions,  Polonski's  breath  fails  him. 
He  imitates  Pouchkine's  somewhat  bourgeois  style  of 
describing  epic  subjects — the  Russian  method,  since  the 
publication  of  Eugene  Onieguine,  but  he  possesses  none 
of  that  conviction  of  the  superiority  of  poetic  truth  over 
reflection  which  is  the  secret  of  the  great  master's  power. 
When  he  follows  his  own  inspiration  and  his  natural 
humour,  he  occasionally  stumbles  on  powerful  and 
original  ideas. 

And  now  the  temple,  haunted  by  the  shade  of  the 
great  poet,  takes  on,  more  and  more,  the  appearance  of  a 
necropolis.  But  a  few  short  years  ago  some  sound  and 
tumult  did  re-echo  across  its  dreary  threshold.  The 
guardians  of  the  sanctuary  cast  out  the  intruders,  whom 
the  outer  world  would  have  borne  in  triumph  beneath 
its  roof,  and  for  whom  plaudits  still  rang  without  the 
walls.  The  face  of  one  of  these — reminding  one  of  a 
Christ  in  agony — still  hovers  before  my  eyes.  His  name 
was  Simon  lakovldvitch  Nadsohn  (i 862-1886).  Like  his 
comrades,  Minski  and  Frug,  he  was  a  Jew.  The  last 
edition  of  his  poems,  dated  1897,  now  lies  upon  my  table. 
It  is  the  fifteenth  !  So  great  a  success  is  unprecedented 
in  the  history  of  his  country.  Is  it  justifiable  ?  M. 
Bourenine  would  not  forgive  me  if  I  said  so.  I  will 
merely  affirm  that  it  is  natural.  There  is  no  strong  per- 
sonality either  in  his  ideas  or  in  his  poetic  form,  but  he 
has  fire,  a  ring  of  sincerity,  a  supple  rhythm.  The  general 
public  asks  nothing  more.  Is  it  in  the  wrong  ?  Are  we 
in  a  position  to  judge  of  that  ?  Nadsohn  has  won  the 
public  heart.  He  has  one  capital  fault — monotony.  But 
is  that  a  fault,  in  Russia  ?     We  seem  to  listen  to  some 


41 8  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

single-stringed  instrument  from  which  the  musician  can 
only  draw  one  solitary  note — a  long-drawn  sob.  *'A/iI 
I  ask  but  little  of  fate  ^  .  .  .  ^'  There  is  an  anguish  more 
terrible  than  tortured  .  .  .  ^^  I  think  I  am  going  mad." 
...'*/  have  dreamed  of  death."  .  .  .  ^^  Muse  I  I  die — a 
foolish  and  impious  deaths  .  .  .  "  /  know  a  comer  in 
the  graveyard  hard  by."  .  .  .  Conceive  four  hundred 
pages  of  poetry  all  in  this  vein  !  but  the  poet  was  only 
twenty,  and  he  knew  himself  doomed  to  the  merciless 
and  tragic  fate  of  his  peers — the  fate  of  Lermontov,  and 
Koltsov,  and  Garchine.  He  felt  he  was  dying,  and  that 
mud  would  be  cast  upon  his  half-closed  tomb.  Not  his 
talent  only,  but  his  honour  was  attacked.  And  further, 
what  better  excuse  could  he  have  had  than  the  enthu- 
siastic reception  given  him  by  the  public  ?  Has  not 
M.  Bour^nine  divined  its  true  meaning  ?  Can  he  hesi- 
tate to  accept  it  as  proof  that  the  single  note  of  a 
lyre  so  soon  to  be  broken,  that  bitter  cry  of  despair  and 
death  agony,  touched  a  sympathetic  chord,  one  which  no 
criticism  can  silence,  in  many  thousands  of  human  souls. 
The  unhappy  young  man  betook  himself  to  Yalta,  to  seek 
relief  from  a  pulmonary  malady.  The  treacherous  attacks 
and  insinuations  showered  upon  him  tended  largely,  so 
the  doctors  have  declared,  to  hurry  on  his  end  ;  and  by 
the  first  and  last  favour  of  that  Fortune  who  was  to  him 
a  cruel  stepmother,  the  steamship  Pouchkine  carried  back 
his  ashes  to  Odessa.  His  grave,  close  to  those  of  Dos- 
toievski  and  Bi^linski,  swallowed  up  yet  another  vanished 
hope.  And  silence,  darker  and  more  gloomy  than  ever, 
fell  round  the  forsaken  temple. 

The  series  of  catastrophes,  which,  from  Batiouchkov 
onwards,  have  checked  the  upward  flight  of  so  many 
brilliant  careers,  can  hardly  be  attributed  to  mere  chance. 


GARCHINE  419 

They  bear  all  the  appearance  of  what  we  may  call  a 
regular  phenomenon,  induced  by  permanent  causes,  a 
wind  of  destruction,  which  sweeps  across  the  huge  plain 
on  which  Nadsohn's  complaint  found  so  persistent  an 
echo.  I  turn  from  poetry,  to  follow  the  most  recent 
exemplifications  of  the  novelist's  art,  and  once  again  I 
stumble  across  a  grave. 

When  I  said  that  Leo  Tolstoi  had  founded  no  school 
in  his  own  country,  I  did  not  dream  of  overlooking  the 
influence  he  has  exercised,  more  especially  from  the 
artistic  point  of  view.  This  influence  is  evident  in  the  first 
literary  efforts  of  VsifivOLOD  MiCHAiLOViTCH  Garchine 
(1855-1885).  I  do  not  refer  to  an  Essay  on  Deaths  a 
school-boy  composition  written  when  he  was  seventeen, 
and  remarkable  for  a  sense  of  realism  astonishing  for 
that  age.  ^^  Welly  I  must  die!  and  then?  it  is  time  to 
go  to  rest.  Only  it  is  a  pity  I  cannot  finish  my  theme. 
Supposing  you  did  it  for  me,  you  are  a  mathematician  ! 
.  .  .  E.  F.  was  dying  of  an  illness  which  has  been  the 
death  of  many  men,  kind  a7id  clever,  strong  and  weak. 
He  was  a  terrible  drunkard,  .  .  .  He  was  a  very  little  man, 
very  ugly,  with  a  cadaverous  complexion.''^  .  .  .  Garchine 
was  an  infant  prodigy,  and  at  a  very  early  period 
the  balance  of  his  mental  faculties  was  in  danger.  As 
a  young  man  he  was  a  prey  to  hallucinations,  and  fits 
of  unhealthy  excitement,  interspersed  w^ith  the  noblest 
inspirations.  He  loathed  war,  and  yet  insisted  on  bear- 
ing his  part  in  the  campaign  of  1876,  so  that  he  might 
share  the  fate  of  the  unfortunate  creatures  sent  out  to 
suffer  and  to  die.  This  was  his  manner  of  ^'  going  out 
amongst  the  people."  He  received  a  bullet  wound  at 
the  battle  of  Aiaslar,  and  related  his  experiences  in  The 
Four  Days,  a  work  which  has  been  flatteringly  compared 


420  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

with  the  Memories  of  Sevastopol.  A  few  months  later,  an 
attempt  was  made  on  the  Hfe  of  Loris  MeHkov,  and  the 
gallows  threatened  one  of  the  poet's  friends.  During 
the  night  before  the  execution,  Garchine  made  desperate 
efforts  to  prevent  it ;  he  failed,  and  soon  after  it  became 
necessary  to  place  him  in  a  lunatic  asylum.  He  re- 
covered, and  married  a  young  lady,  who  practised  as  a 
doctor,  and  employed  all  her  skill  to  prevent  a  recurrence 
of  his  attack.  But  before  long  the  readers  of  his  Red 
Flower  were  forced  to  the  conclusion  that  the  young 
author  was  still  haunted  by  memories  of  the  time  spent 
in  the  madhouse.  The  story  describes  a  demented 
person,  half-conscious  of  his  condition,  who  wears  him- 
self out  in  superhuman  efforts  to  gain  possession  of  a 
red  poppy — reddened,  as  he  imagines,  by  the  blood  of 
all  the  martyrdoms  of  the  human  race.  If  the  flower 
were  only  destroyed,  he  thinks,  humanity  would  be 
saved.  A  few  years  later,  Garchine  threw  himself  over 
the  staircase,  and  was  killed. 

Some  of  his  works,  expatiating  on  the  uselessness 
and  monstrous  cruelty  of  war,  are  directly  inspired  by 
Tolstoi.  To  his  master  he  owes  his  very  elevated  doc- 
trine and  his  exceedingly  delicate  aesthetic  sense.  His 
I  Four  Days,  a  terrifying  picture  of  a  wounded  Russian 
left  tete-a-tete  with  the  rotting  corpse  of  a  dead  Turk,  is 
as  full  of  detail  as  a  picture  by  Verechtchaguine,  and  he 
is  believed  to  have  been  influenced  by  that  master  of 
pictorial  realism.  You  will  not  find  a  single  disgusting 
detail.  Like  Tolstoi',  the  author  of  The  Red  Flower 
delights  in  allegory ;  for  assuredly,  the  execution  of  the 
bears  condemned  to  death  by  the  police,  and  executed 
by  their  masters,  the  wandering  gipsies,  described  in  the 
tale  named  after  those  harmless  Plantigrades,  is  allegorical 


GARCHINE  421 

in  intention.  We  find  another  instance  in  the  story  of 
the  Attalea  PrincepSj  an  exotic  plant  which  pines  to 
break  the  hothouse  in  which  it  is  shut  up.  At  the  very 
moment  when  its  end  is  attained  and  its  proud  crest 
shatters  the  glass  dome  which  protects  it  from  the  frost, 
the  winter  sky  chills  it  from  above,  and,  at  its  base,  it 
feels  the  sharp  teeth  of  the  saw,  which,  by  the  head- 
gardener's  command,  rids  the  conservatory  of  its  too 
ambitious  presence.  The  ideas  .thus  symbolised  are 
somewhat  obscure. 

In  The  Coward  {Trouss),  Garchine  goes  even  further 
than  Tolstoi  in  the  direction  taken  by  the  Doukho- 
bortsy.  He  depicts  a  soldier  who  protests  furiously 
against  the  necessity  of  being  killed,  or  trying  to  kill 
his  fellow-creatures,  but  who  does  his  duty  none  the 
less,  and  dies,  rifle  in  hand,  in  very  simple  and  heroic 
fashion.  The  Russian  talent  for  dying  worthily  was  one 
of  Garchine's  favourite  ideas  from  his  youth  up.  His 
very  wide  humanity,  his  hatred  for  everything  that 
causes  suffering,  his  sympathy  for  life's  failures,  whether 
innocent  or  guilty,  follows  him  into  his  novels  on  social 
questions.  But  his  talent  is  marred  by  his  excessive, 
though  thoroughly  honest,  pessimism.  The  victors,  the 
fortunate  individuals  whom  he  brings  before  us,  are  all, 
without  exception,  very  shabby  characters.  Such  are 
Diedov,  in  The  Artists^  and  the  engineer  who  has  grown 
rich  in  The  Meeting,  Riabinine,  Diedov's  less  fortunate 
friend,  curses  his  art,  and  turns  his  back  upon  it,  after 
seeing,  during  a  visit  to  a  factory,  a  workman  crouched  in 
a  boiler,  and  pressing  his  chest  against  the  rivets  while 
his  foreman  strikes  them  with  his  hammer.  Garchine's 
most  attractive  type  (probably  autobiographic  in  its 
nature)  is  that  of  a  man  who  is  doomed  to  suffering,  and 


422  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

who  looks  at  life  with  a  feeling  of  painful  impotence ;  a 
man  with  no  belief  in  happiness,  no  power  of  being 
happy,  inspired  by  a  deep  love  for  the  human  race,  and 
an  equal  and  almost  feminine  horror  of  life's  struggle. 
When  he  is  forced  to  struggle,  even  to  save  the 
woman  he  loves  from  misery — as  in  the  novel  entitled 
Nadiejda  Nikolaiev7ta — he  is  incapable  of  anything  but 
suffering  without  a  murmur,  until  a  pistol  shot  ends 
it  all. 

Garchine  is  no  declaimer,  he  gives  us  no  showy  tirades 
or  phrases.  His  humanitarian  ideas  connect  him  with 
the  intellectual  current  of  the  sixties,  and  his  preference 
for  heroes  who  always  stand  out  above  the  common  herd, 
men  either  of  high  intelligence  or  a  strong  character, 
distinguishes  him  from  Tolstoi,  and  draws  him  closer  to 
Tourgueniev  and  the  traditions  of  the  romantic  school. 
This  feature,  as  well  as  his  care  for  artistic  completeness 
and  his  preference  for  short  stories,  in  which  that  is 
more  easily  attained,  he  also  shares  with  his  imitator 
Vladimir  Koroli^nko. 

This  writer,  who  was  born  in  i860,  has  hitherto  pub- 
lished only  one  really  considerable  story.  It  numbers 
150  pages,  and  is  entitled  The  Blind  Musician,  This, 
with  his  The  Forest  Whispers,  and  loni-Kipour^  forms 
part  of  a  cycle  of  compositions,  the  scene  of  which  is  laid 
in  South-Western  Russia,  whereas  his  Tales  of  a  Siberian 
Tourist  call  up  the  snow-covered  landscapes  of  the  north, 
and  the  exiles  and  convicts  there  to  be  found.  Koro- 
li^nko  himself  made  involuntary  acquaintance  with  exile, 
brought  about  by  the  most  trifling  of  political  peccadilloes. 
In  all  these  stories  the  moral  teaching  is  identical,  and 
strongly  resembles  that  we  have  already  noticed  in  the 
case  of  Garchine — sympathy  felt  with  the  weak  and  the 


KOROLIENKO  423 

hardly  used,  and  no  clear    distinction    drawn   between 
the  innocent  and  the  guilty. 

The  novelist's  reputation  dates  from  the  publication 
of  his  Dream  of  Macaire^  1885 — a  fanciful  story,  which 
winds  up  with  the  judgment  of  a  drunkard  peasant  by  a 
heavenly  tribunal.  Whether  the  heaven  be  that  of  the 
Gospel  or  that  of  Siberian  legend  is  not  made  abundantly 
clear.  The  Russian  public  thirsts  for  poetry ;  it  eagerly 
quaffed  the  cup  offered  it  by  Korolienko,  without  looking 
too  closely  at  the  bottom.  That  which  lies  at  the  bottom 
of  the  cup  does  not,  in  this  author's  case,  possess  a 
perfect  lucidity.  His  figures  are  like  Murillo's  beggars. 
But  he  possesses  the  art  of  escaping  triviality  by  never 
lingering  over  external  detail  longer  than  is  absolutely 
necessary  to  the  realisation  of  his  types.  Dostoievski's 
influence  is  clearly  visible  in  the  Tales  of  a  Siberian 
Tourist.  To  it  we  owe  some  very  doubtful  portraits  of 
good  ruffians.  But  this  is  a  mere  passing  error.  The 
tales  entitled  The  Old  Ringer  and  An  Easter  Nighty  which 
belong  to  the  same  group,  betray  nothing  of  this  kind. 
The  exquisite  language,  the  transparently  brilliant  colour- 
ing, and  the  picturesque  imagery  of  these  stories  recall 
Tourgueniev's  Poems  in  Prose,  and  no  greater  praise  can 
be  ascribed  to  any  author.  The  soldier  of  the  guard, 
who,  in  spite  of  himself,  becomes  the  murderer  of  the 
escaped  convict,  whom  he  brings  down  by  a  shot  from 
his  rifle,  just  as  the  distant  bells  ring  out  the  Easter  ves- 
pers, attracts  our  sympathy  even  more  strongly  than  his 
victim.  Korolienko  reached  a  height,  here,  which  he  was 
unfortunately  not  destined  to  maintain.  The  men  of  his 
generation  soon  lose  their  breath  ;  it  may  be  because 
they  find  so  little  air  that  they  can  breathe.  In  lom- 
Kipour  (the  Jewish  Day  of  Expiation),  which  relates  how 

23 


424  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

a  Little-Russian  miller,  good  Christian  though  he  is/ 
narrowly  escapes  being  carried  away  by  the  devil,  in  the 
place  of  the  Jewish  tavern-keeper  lankiel,  because,  like 
him,  he  has  tried  to  make  money  out  of  the  poor  peasants 
— a  very  true  and  deep  idea  is  embodied  in  a  most 
delightful  description  of  local  manners  and  customs. 
But  all  the  other  pieces  in  the  same  collection  are  pale 
in  colour  and  empty  in  conception.  The  Blind  Musician^ 
who  attempts  to  reproduce  the  sensations  of  sight  by 
means  of  sounds,  is  an  attempt,  and  a  fresh  failure,  to 
work  out  a  psychological  subject,  w^hich  had  attracted 
many  w-riters  before  Korolienko's  time. 

The  Russian  novelist  has  hoped  to  replace  the  lack 
of  substance  in  his  writings  by  lyrical  fire ;  but  his 
enthusiasm  is  cold  and  without  emotion. 

In  On  the  Road  and  Two  Points  of  VieWy  Tolstoi's 
influence,  following  on  that  of  Dostoievski,  impels  the 
author  in  his  search  for  some  moral  principle  as  the 
basis  of  our  common  existence.  The  traveller  who 
has  lately  escaped  from  a  Siberian  prison,  and  is  strain- 
ing every  nerve  to  escape  innumerable  dangers  and 
regain  his  home,  stops  suddenly  short.  A  doubt  has 
overwhelmed  him.  Why  should  he  fly  ?  Why  go  there 
rather  than  elsewhere  ?  and  Korolienko  is  soon  deep  in 
the  analysis  of  the  wavering  spirit  of  the  men  of  his 
generation.  A  young  man  sees  one  of  his  friends  killed 
in  a  railway  accident ;  so  struck  is  he  by  this  event  that 
he  arrives  at  last,  through  a  series  of  questions,  at  a 
completely  mechanical  conception  of  existence.  What 
is  the  use  of  thought  or  love  ?  and  he  forsakes  a  young 
girl,  whose  affections  he  has  won,  until  the  unhappy 
creature's  sufferings  reveal  the  true  meaning  of  life  to 
his  case-hardened  soul. 


NOVELISTS  425 

All  this,  finished  as  it  is  as  far  as  the  form  goes,  is 
very  incomplete  in  conception,  and  for  some  years  past 
Korolienko  seems  to  have  taken  a  fancy  to  a  still  more  slip- 
shod method  of  work.  He  has  published  notes  collected 
in  the  Government  of  Nijni-Novgorod,  in  the  course  of 
one  of  those  famines  which  from  time  to  time  afflict  the 
provinces  of  the  great  empire  ;  and  after  a  journey  to 
England,  he  made  known  his  impressions  of  a  stormy 
sitting  in  Parliament.  But  all  this  may  not  unfairly  be 
called  mere  reporter's  work. 

The  favour  of  the  Russian  public  is  now  bestowed 
on  another  group  of  novelists,  far  removed  from  Tolstoi 
and  his  views  of  morality  and  art.  The  lovers  of  aesthetic 
delights,  and  the  eager  reformers  of  the  forties  and  the 
sixties,  have  given  place  to  a  new  generation  of  readers, 
whose  chief  desire  is  to  be  amused  or  startled,  and  who 
are  not  over  particular  as  to  the  quality  of  the  work  which 
gives  them  the  desired  sensation.  Messrs  Boborikine  and 
Potapienko  are  amongst  those  who  best  understand  how 
to  satisfy  this  need.  The  first  named  (born  1836)  is  a  bold 
follower  after  prevailing  fashions.  For  a  considerable 
period  he  has  published  a  novel  every  year,  and  he  has 
never  failed  to  touch  on  the  topic  of  the  moment.  In 
the  last  I  have  read,  that  published  in  1897,  and  entitled 
In  Another  Manner^  I  find  references  to  the  latest  fashion- 
able philosophic  formula.  Economic  Materialism,  Except 
for  the  difference  in  talent,  the  author's  method  is  that 
of  Tourgueniev  in  Fathers  and  Children.  But  the  spirit 
of  the  work  is  very  dissimilar.  It  is  affected  by  the  in- 
differentist  theories  of  The  Week,  In  The  Turnings  which 
dates  from  1894,  my  readers  will  find  a  very  curious 
panorama  of  the  variations  of  philosophy  and  literature 
since  the  year  1840.     M.  Boborikine  makes  no  selection 


426  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

of  his  own,  and  does  not  suggest  that  his  readers  should 
make  any. 

M.  Potapienko,  whose  celebrity  only  dates  from  1891, 
is  a  great  discoverer  of  dramatic  situations.  Generally 
speaking,  he  leaves  them  where  he  finds  them.  The 
failure  of  certain  of  his  novels  doubtless  arises  from  this 
last  peculiarity ;  for  the  author  has  naturalness,  feeling, 
freshness  of  impression,  and  a  delicate  observation. 
Occasionally  he  shows  a  philosophic  intention.  In  Sins 
(1896)  he  even  strikes  me,  in  his  somewhat  coarse  expo- 
sure of  the  hypocritical  virtue  of  a  father,  before  the  art- 
less eyes  of  his  children,  as  following  up  the  furrow 
traced  by  the  toiler  of  lasnaia  Poliana.  Like  their  rivals  of 
the  other  group,  these  observers  of  life  through  a  reversed 
opera-glass  prefer  very  small  frames  for  their  pictures. 
If  they  do  chance  to  choose  a  larger  setting,  they  only 
succeed  in  bringing  together  a  succession  of  tiny  facts 
and  exiguous  impressions,  which  remind  one  of  those 
strings  of  dried  mushrooms  that  grace  the  shop  front 
of  every  Russian  provision  merchant.     The  star  of  this 

school  is  M.  TCHfiKHOV. 

I  am  tempted  to  describe  this  young  writer  as  having 
hitherto  proved  himself  a  lirst-rate  artist  in  an  inferior  style. 
And  further,  he  has  been  living,  since  1885,  on  a  promise 
which  threatens  to  become  a  disappointment.  Has  he 
given  us  his  last  word  ?  I  cannot  tell.  The  personal 
impression  he  left  on  me  about  a  year  ago,  after  all  too 
short  an  interview,  was  that  of  a  man  of  a  very  thought- 
ful and  retiring  nature.  His  first  attempts,  published  in 
one  of  the  least  important  of  the  St.  Petersburg  news- 
papers, revealed  a  most  successful  search  after  simplicity, 
a  natural  gift  for  fitting  his  form  to  his  subject,  a  regret- 
table taste  for  coarse  humour,  and  a  dangerous  tendency 


TCKEKHOV  427 

to  the  drawing  of  arabesques  upon  an  invisible  back- 
ground. In  a  collection  of  tales  published,  at  a  later 
period,  in  book  form,  the  young  writer's  range  of  vision 
appears  raised  and  widened.  He  touches  on  psycho- 
logical conflicts  {The  Sorceress  and  Agatha)  and  even 
on  social  problems  {The  Enemies  and  The  Nightmare) y 
— elements  in  the  drama  of  existence  which  he  had 
hitherto  seemed  to  ignore.  These  matters  are  glanced 
at,  rather  than  squarely  faced,  in  The  Twilight ^ — 
such  is  the  title  of  the  collection.  The  half-tints, 
the  vague  hints,  the  hasty  abridgments,  of  which 
the  author  makes  use,  were  accepted,  at  that  time, 
as  an  ingenious  artifice,  deliberately  employed.  But 
on  this  point  Tchekhov's  admirers  were  soon  unde- 
ceived. In  The  Steppe  he  undertook  a  canvas  on  a 
larger  scale,  and  it  was  noticed,  with  astonishment, 
that  his  method  remained  unchanged.  He  still  gave 
sketches ;  passing  impressions  hastily  noted  down ; 
scenes  strung  one  after  the  other,  without  any  apparent 
bond  of  continuity  ;  vague  outlines  ;  and  not  one  vigor- 
ous touch  or  clear-cut  figure.  No  !  not  even  that  of 
Egorouchka,  the  principal  character  of  the  book, — a 
nine-year-old  boy,  whom  his  father  takes  to  school 
across  the  Steppe,  and  who  describes  the  landscapes 
seen  during  his  journey.  The  method  of  describing  the 
scene — quite  that  of  Tourgueniev,  a  deliberate  confu- 
sion of  the  child's  ideas  and  sentiments  with  his  feel- 
ings of  nature  and  with  his  inner  sensations — creates  a 
still  stronger  impression  of  artificiality  as  seen  in  Tchek- 
hov's work.  Egorouchka  hears  a  song,  and  cannot  see 
the  singer.  At  once  he  imagines  this  plaintive  voice  to 
be  that  of  the  grass,  already  half  burnt  up  by  the  sum- 
mer heat.     The  grass  sings  and   weeps  ;    it  tells  some 


428  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

other  invisible  being  that  it  has  not  deserved  the  fate 
which  has  overtaken  it,  that  the  cruel  sun  does  wrong  to 
devour  it,  so  young  as  it  still  is,  so  fair  as  it  might  yet 
grow,  so  passionately  as  it  clings  to  life  !  The  effect  of 
this  lyric  effort  might  possibly  be  considerable,  but  for 
the  presence  of  Egorouchka,  whom  nobody  can  suppose 
capable  of  so  much  imagination.  A  moment's  reflection 
detects  the  poet's  artifice,  and  thus  his  endeavour  is  in 
vain.  The  story  ends  when  the  child  reaches  the  town 
where  he  is  to  enter  school.  The  panorama  of  the  great 
Steppe,  which  thus  fills  the  whole  picture — with  its 
huge  plains,  its  picturesque  encampments,  its  dirty 
taverns,  and  their  heterogeneous  crowd  of  travellers, 
rough  drovers,  filthy  Jews,  and  elegant  fine  ladies — bears 
witness  to  a  care  for  detail  carried  even  into  trifling 
minutiae.  How  is  it  that  the  truth  of  this  laborious 
realism  carries  no  conviction  to  my  mind  ?  It  may  be 
the  Polish  countess  who  has  stirred  my  suspicion. 
Polish  countesses  receive,  as  a  rule,  but  scurvy  treat- 
ment at  the  hands  of  Russian  novelists.  And  it  is  no 
part  of  my  duty  to  defend  them  here.  But  I  can 
assure  M.  Tchekhov  that  not  one  has  ever  addressed 
any  man,  whether  her  lover  or  another,  by  his  first 
two  fiamesy  according  to  the  essentially  Russian  cus- 
tom. The  touch  in  itself  is  of  no  importance.  But  it 
is  the  importance  ascribed  in  Tchekhov's  work,  and  in 
that  of  the  new  school,  to  such  touches,  nine  out  of  ten 
of  which  are  utterly  incorrect,  which  causes  me  distress. 
The  author  of  The  Steppe  would  have  done  far  better  if 
he  had  clearly  indicated  the  general  idea  of  his  com- 
position. Did  he  aim  at  the  symbolisation  of  the 
general  aspect  of  life,  and  the  apparent  absence  of 
connection     between     the     phenomena    which     go     to 


TCHEKHOV  429 

make  it  up  ?  I  have  no  idea.  Perhaps  he  has  none, 
either. 

In  the  author's  other  stories,  A  Melancholy  Tale^  A 
St7'anger's  Story ^  and  Room  No.  6,  I  do,  on  the  contrary, 
perceive  an  effort  to  seize  the  meaning  of  these  pheno- 
mena, and  throw  them  into  striking  and  typical  form. 
In  the  last-named  work,  Tchekhov  even  seems  to  take  up 
arms  in  an  unexpected  revulsion  of  feeling  against  that 
indifferentism  which  constitutes  the  badge  and  the  essen- 
tial dogma  of  his  school,  and  the  affinity  of  which  with 
Tolstoi's  theory  of  non-resistance,  nobody  can  fail  to 
recognise.  The  hero  of  this  tale  is  a  hospital  doctor, 
who  treats  his  patients  by  scepticism.  Room  No.  6  is 
set  apart  for  persons  mentally  affected.  It  is  a  filthy 
hole,  where  nobody  gets  enough  to  eat,  except  the  bugs. 
This  does  not  prevent  the  sceptical  medico  from  assuring 
his  patients  that  they  are  just  as  well  off  there  as  any- 
where else,  seeing  it  is  a  matter  of  perfect  indifference 
whether  they  dwell  in  the  open  air,  or  are  shut  up  in  a 
cell,  and  whether  their  food  is  good  or  bad,  not  to  mention 
the  thumps  administered  by  Nikita,  their  keeper.  A  day 
comes  at  last,  when,  the  doctor  having  been  himself 
ordered  to  undergo  his  former  patients'  so-called  cure, 
Nikita  bestows  the  same  treatment  upon  him,  and  he 
dies  of  it. 

The  Melancholy  Tale  has  been  the  most  successful  of 
all  these  works  (1889).  My  readers  must  imagine  two  per- 
sons of  absolutely  different  character  and  condition,  the 
man  a  savant,  the  woman  an  actress,  whom  chance  has 
thrown  together,  who  are  soon  still  more  closely  bound 
by  their  common  sense  of  the  vanity  of  life,  and  whose 
communion  leads  them,  on  parallel  lines,  one  to  loathe 
his  science,  and  the  other  to  loathe  her  art.     Such  part- 


430  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

nerships  do  not,  fortunately,  form  part  of  Western  habits. 
And  their  result,  as  presented  to  us  by  Tchekhov,  is  not 
conclusive.  For  Katia  has  no  talent,  and  her  protector 
strikes  us  as  being  a  thorough  simpleton.  In  the  course 
of  the  book,  the  author  makes  an  attack  upon  modern 
Russian  literature.  The  savant  reads  nothing  in  his 
leisure  time  but  French  novels.  They  do  not  altogether 
satisfy  him,  but  they  are  less  tiresome  than  those  pub- 
lished in  Russia,  and  at  all  events  they  contain  the  essen- 
tial element  of  all  artistic  creation — that  sentiment  of 
individual  liberty,  of  which  not  a  trace  remains  in  the 
Russian  writers  of  the  last  ten  or  fifteen  years.  But 
might  not  this  learned  man  indulge  in  a  more  serious 
kind  of  reading  ?  He  does,  but  not  in  Russian.  Russian 
books  of  the  serious  order  are  written  in  Hebrew,  as  far 
as  he  is  concerned. 

I  have  no  intention  of  making  myself  responsible 
for  this  sally,  but  it  may  assist  my  readers  in  verifying 
the  judgments  I  offer  for  their  acceptance. 

Tchekhov's  capital  fault  is  the  absence  of  any  natural 
and  organic  connection  between  the  characters  he  de- 
picts, and  between  the  action  and  the  denouement  of 
his  stories.  This  drawback  is  evident  even  in  A 
Strangers  Storey  which — and  this  is  a  fresh  surprise — 
almost  carries  us  back  to  the  literary  school  of  1840. 
This  Stranger,  who  has  mysterious  reasons,  the  secret 
of  which  we  shall  never  know,  for  his  enmity  against 
an  exalted  personage,  takes  service  as  valet  with  the 
great  man's  son,  in  order  that  he  may  kill  the  father. 
Instead  of  perpetrating  murder,  he  commits  abduction. 
His  enemy  has  a  mistress,  whom  he  is  just  about  to 
forsake.  The  Stranger,  touched  with  pity,  carries  her 
across  the  frontier.     But  she  has  no  love  for  him.     He 


TCHEKHOV  431 

IS  stung  with  remorse^  and  knows  not  which  way  to  turn. 
Here  we  have  another  '^  superfluous  man  "  ;  but  who  is 
he? 

Tchekhov's  latest  works,  My  Life  and  The  Gabled 
House,  prove  him  to  be  less  and  less  capable  of  supplying 
clear  answers  to  the  questions  he  is  so  fond  of  multiplying. 
It  is  now  quite  evident,  indeed,  that  he  has  missed  his  path. 
Sometimes  we  find  him  following  Tolstoi's  latest  move- 
ment, sometimes  on  the  track  of  the  French  symbolists 
and  decadents,  and  then  suddenly,  in  The  Peasants,  he 
executes  a  step  backward  in  the  direction  of  Gogol  and 
Tourgueniev.  A  waiter  in  a  Moscow  restaurant  falls 
ill,  travels  home  to  his  old  village,  finds  there  is  no  place 
for  him  there  now,  and  dies  in  his  despair.  The  coarse- 
ness and  savagery  of  rural  habits  are  here  set  forth 
with  extraordinary  power.  But  the  picture  is  thoroughly 
repulsive.  There  is  no  artistic  feeling  in  it.  That  feel- 
ing existed,  unconsciously,  in  Gogol's  case,  and  more 
consciously  in  that  of  Tourgudniev,  in  the  impression 
they  both  give  us  that  their  moujiks  possess  hearts  and 
souls,  worthy  of  another  and  a  better  fate.  Tchekhov's 
peasants  are  heavy  brutes,  without  purity  of  moral  sense, 
nor  any  thought  of  the  hereafter. 

Tchekhov  has  also  written  for  the  stage.  He  has  pub- 
lished a  drama,  Ivanov  (1889),  a  comedy,  The  Seagull, 
and  several  other  pieces.  These  efforts  of  his  have  not 
been  crowned  with  success.  The  two  indispensable 
factors  in  any  work  intended  for  the  stage,  action,  and 
the  psychological  development  of  character,  are  just 
those  the  total  absence  of  which  detracts  from  the  value 
of  his  best  stories.  Clearness  is  indispensable  in  dramatic 
writing,  and  Tchekhov  cannot  cast  off  his  twilight  manner. 
Does  he   conceive   his  Ivanov  to   represent  the  young 


432  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

generation,  which  sets  to  work  furiously  at  twenty,  and 
seems  worn  out  by  its  exertions  before  it  reaches  the  age 
of  thirty  ?  We  may  conclude  that  this  is  so.  But  where 
is  the  effort  ?  Ivanov  marries  a  rich  Jewess  for  the  sake 
of  her  fortune,  and  consoles  himself  for  the  inevitable 
disappointments  she  causes  him,  by  seducing  a  Christian 
girl.  This  twofold  performance  leaves  him  so  over- 
whelmed with  debt,  grey  hairs,  and  hypochondria, 
that  he  shoots  himself  with  a  pistol,  just  as  he  is  about 
to  lead  a  second  bride  to  the  altar.  The  real  meaning  of 
this  conclusion  quite  escapes  me.  That  of  The  Seagull 
is  similar  in  nature,  which  appears  somewhat  odd,  as 
applied  to  a  comedy.  Everywhere,  even  in  the  young 
author's  tales  and  stories,  we  behold  the  same  strange 
assemblage  of  neurotics,  lunatics,  and  semi-lunatics :  well- 
born girls,  rich  and  pretty,  who  suddenly,  no  one  knows 
why,  lose  their  heads,  cast  themselves  into  the  arms  of  a 
man  they  have  never  seen  but  once,  and  whom  they  will 
certainly  leave  on  the  morrow,  even  if  they  do  happen 
to  marry  him  ;  young  men  of  twenty  who  loathe  life 
already ;  old  men  of  sixty  who  have  just  found  out  that 
existence  has  no  meaning.  The  society  thus  brought 
before  us  is  really  like  a  nightmare.  All  its  members  are 
bent  on  one  thing  only,  the  solution  of  the  problem  of 
life.  Girls,  young  men,  old  men,  all  study  it  persistently. 
What  is  its  meaning  ?  They  struggle  desperately  to  find 
an  answer,  and  suffer  and  die  because  none  is  forth- 
coming. I  fear,  indeed,  that  the  mind  of  the  world,  as 
modern  civilisation  has  made  it,  is  largely  occupied,  even 
in  Russia,  with  other  subjects,  and  that  when  Tchekhov 
takes  it  to  be  absorbed  by  this  particular  anxiety,  he  is 
a  prey,  like  Tolstoi,  to  a  mere  fanciful  illusion. 

Like   all    his    young   followers,    the    author    of    The 


SCIENCE  433 

FatheVy  and  of  several  others  of  those  equally  short 
stories  in  which  he  seems  to  excel,  soon  loses  his  depth 
when  he  attempts  larger  subjects.  Perhaps  the  respon- 
sibility for  this  should  be  ascribed,  in  a  certain  measure, 
to  that  pneumatic  machine  the  rarefying  action  of  which 
M.  Pabiedonostsov  daily  increases. 

The  effect  of  this  process  of  suffocation  is  very  evi- 
dent in  those  sketches  of  provincial  life,  Ursa  Major  and 
After  the  Deluge,  in  which  Madame  Khvostchinskaia  (born 
1825)  has  won  distinction,  under  the  nom  de plume  of  M. 
Krestovski.  This  name  must  not  be  confused  with  that 
of  its  rightful  owner,  Vsievolod  Krestovski  (born  1820), 
an  imitator  of  Eugene  Sue's  picturesque  descriptions  of 
the  habits  of  the  city  populace. 

My  readers  will  divine  how  much  greater  must  be 
the  moral  depression  of  scientific  progress  arising  out 
of  the  same  causes.  Activity  in  scientific  matters  is 
confined  to  the  domain  of  geography,  ethnography, 
and  history.  The  expeditions  organised  by  the  Im- 
perial Geographical  Society,  and  the  publications  of 
its  Ethnographical  Department,  and  the  statistical  and 
geographical  studies  pursued  under  the  auspices  of 
the  General  Staff  and  of  the  Minister  of  the  Interior, 
have,  during  the  last  thirty  years,  imparted  a  con- 
siderable forward  impulse  to  this  branch  of  science. 
It  is  curious  that  this  collective  work,  in  which  the 
names  of  Bouniakovski,  Zablotski-Diessiatovski,  Bezobra- 
zov,  Buschen,  Hagemaister,  Halmersen,  Bloch,  Niebol- 
chine,  Thorner,  Janson,  and  Tchoubinski  are  associated, 
has  not  brought  any  special  individual  effort  into  pro- 
minence. This  is  perhaps  in  agreement  with  the  demo- 
cratic spirit  of  the  country,  expressed  in  the  proverb, 
''A  body  of  men  is  one  great  man."     The  same  fact  is 


434  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

certainly  reproduced  in  the  domain  of  historical  investi- 
gation, in  which  ^'The  Society  for  the  Study  of  History 
and  Antiquity/'  ^^The  Archaeological  Society/'  ^'The 
Imperial  Historical  Society/'  and  the  periodical  publica- 
tions of  the  Russian  Archive^  edited  by  Barteniev ;  of 
Russian  Antiquities ^  edited  by  Siemievski ;  of  The  Ar- 
chives of  Prince  VorontzoVy  The  A  rchives  of  Prince  Koura- 
kinCy  Ancient  and  Modern  Russia^  and  The  Antiquities  of 
KieVy  have  done  wonderful  work,  collected  an  enormous 
amount  of  information,  and  piled  quantities  of  the  best 
■material  ready  to  the  worker's  hand.  But  the  workers, 
whose  personal  labour  can  alone  utilise  the  said  material, 
have  not  as  yet  appeared. 

It  is  true  that  the  present  order  of  things  would  seem 
to  preclude  their  appearance.  The  correspondence  of  the 
Empress  Catherine  has  been  published,  even  to  its  most 
private  and  least  edifying  details ;  but  the  first  two  volumes 
of  the  History,  in  wHich  M.  Bilbassov  proposed  to  re- 
produce— and  in  the  discreetest  manner  possible — the 
general  features  of  the  reign  of  the  great  Empress,  were 
promptly  suppressed  ;  and  the  ten  remaining  volumes 
of  this  important  work  are  still  in  the  manuscript.  M. 
Klioutchevski's  lectures  are  only  known,  beyond  the  circle 
of  his  audience  at  the  Moscow  University,  by  means 
of  a  few  lithographed  copies.  General  Schilder  has 
undertaken  a  great  history  of  Alexander  I.  Amongst  the 
documents  therein  quoted  we  find  the  condemnation 
of  the  autocratic  principle  expressed  by  the  august 
disciple  of  La  Harpe,  and  the  exact  list  of  the  guests 
who  assembled  round  the  table  of  Paul  I.  the  night 
before  his  death.  But  we  shall  not  discover  the  smallest 
reference  to  the  causes  and  incidents  of  that  gloomy 
catastrophe,    though    the    author,    who   commands   the 


HISTORIANS  435 

School  of  Military  Engineering,  and  occupies  the  very 
palace  in  which  the  occurrence  took  place,  must  possess 
special  information  on  the  subject.  In  the  person  of 
Milioukov,  the  younger  generation  has  given  us  a  man 
who  is  more  specially  gifted  for  this  sort  of  study  than 
almost  any  other  I  have  ever  met.  I  have  just  heard 
that  he  has  been  forbidden  to  teach  even  at  Sophia. 
Kovalevski  has  been  forced  to  produce  his  fine  work 
in  four  volumes,  on  the  origins  of  contemporary  democ- 
racy, on  French  soil,  and  a  fresh  edition,  in  the  French 
language,  is  now  passing  through  the  press. 

Such  of  the  national  historians  as  have  not  found 
means  to  carry  out  their  work,  or  publish  their  writings, 
abroad,  fall  back  on  subjects  which,  though  exceedingly 
interesting,  are  less  fitted  to  advance  the  study  of  the 
nation's  past.  M.  Manouilov  published,  in  1894,  a  book 
on  the  Agrarian  System  in  Ireland,  founded  on  documents 
in  the  British  Museum,  and  on  his  own  local  obser- 
vation. In  the  following  year,  M.  Kamienski  gave  us 
Six  Years  of  Tory  Government  in  England^  i88y  to  iSgj, 
Quite  lately  I  met,  in  Paris,  a  young  Professor  from  the 
University  of  Kiev,  who  had  come  to  France  to  study 
the  organisation  of  the  old  provincial  parliaments.  The 
remarkable  Essay  on  the  Representative  System  of  the  Pro- 
vincial States  of  Ancient  Russia^  published  by  M.  Kliout- 
chevski,  strikes  me  as  having  been  affected  by  the  author's 
desire  to  avoid  incurring  the  displeasure  of  the  Censure. 

In  the  field  of  literary  history,  the  first  place  is  held 
by  a  veteran  of  "the  sixties,"  and  comrade-in-arms  of 
Tchernichevski,  Alexander  Nicolaievitch  Pypine  (born 
1833).  He  was  obliged  to  leave  his  professorial  chair 
in  the  St.  Petersburg  University  in  the  year  1862,  as 
a  result  of  the  students'  revolts  to  which  I  have  re- 


436  RUSSIAN   LITERATURE 

ferred,  and  which  are  recurring  at  the  present  time. 
His  writings  are  exceedingly  voluminous.  His  great 
History  of  the  Slav  Literatures,  in  which  he  was  assisted 
by  M.  Vladimir  Spassowicz,  was  preceded  or  followed 
by  a  series  of  original  works,  and  published  docu- 
ments, dealing  with  popular  poetry  and  the  older 
writers,  the  period  of  Alexander  I.,  the  literary  prog- 
ress of  the  years  between  1820  and  1850,  the  life  of 
Bielinski,  and,  more  recently,  with  Panslavism,  and  with 
the  latest  results  of  the  study  of  Russian  Ethnography. 
For  the  purposes  of  this  book,  I  have  consulted  three 
volumes  of  a  Histoiy  of  Russian  Literature,  which  bear 
witness  to  the  author's  deep  knowledge  and  finely-de- 
veloped critical  faculty.  His  literary  reviews  in  The 
Etiropean  Messenger  carry  authoritative  weight. 

Amongst  his  followers  I  must  mention  N.  S.  Tikhon- 
ravov  (1832-1893),  who  published,  between  1859  and 
1 86 1,  five  volumes  of  a  work  which  has  won  many 
admirers,  entitled,  Chronicle  of  Russian  Literature  and 
Antiquities,  This  was  followed  by  a  sw^arm  of  detached 
studies,  principally  on  the  subject  of  the  literary  history 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  M.  Tikhonravov  was  also  the 
author  of  a  critic's  edition  of  Gogol;  in  seven  volumes, 
which  appeared  in  1889. 

I  see  no  figure  worthy  to  rank,  as  regards  knowledge, 
broad-mindedness,  and  independence,  with  that  of  Pypine, 
save  Nicholas  Constantinovich  Mikhailovski.  A  younger 
man — he  was  born  in  1843 — he  does  not  belong  to  the 
latest  generation,  though  he  unfortunately  shows  traces  of 
certain  of  its  tendencies.  He  excels  it  in  brilliance,  wit, 
and  artistic  power,  but  his  talent,  like  that  of  Garchine, 
is  dimmed,  in  my  opinion,  by  his  deliberate  pessimism. 
He  never  spares  any  one,  seldom  praises  anything,  and 


PHILOSOPHERS  437 

carries  his  use  of  sarcasm  into  abuse.  He  has  been 
called  the  Chtchedrine  of  criticism.  He  did,  in  fact, 
collaborate  with  the  mighty  publicist  in  the  pages  of 
Annals  of  the  Fatherland,  and  seems  to  have  annexed 
some  peculiarities  of  his  style, — with  its  wealth  of  incident 
and  antitheses,  its  love  of  the  comic  and  grotesque,  and 
its  swift  changes  from  the  humorous  to  the  pathetic.  A 
considerable  number  of  Mikailovski's  works  are  devoted 
to  the  English  philosophers,  Darwin  and  Mill,  with  a 
glance  at  Herbert  Spencer. 

The  philosophers  of  his  own  country  have  so  far 
given  Mikailovski  less  occupation.  The  great  national 
school  of  philosophy,  the  dream  of  the  intellectual  heirs 
of  Khomiakov,  remains  a  dream.  Schopenhauer,  whose 
jubilee  was  brilliantly  celebrated  at  Moscow  in  1888,  did 
not  endow  his  Russian  disciples  with  that  strong  sense  of 
discipline  which  their  elders  had  imbibed  from  Hegel  and 
Schelling.  De  Roberty  may  indeed,  as  his  biographer, 
M.  G.  de  Greef,  asserts,  be  one  of  the  most  original 
thinkers  of  our  day,  but  if  it  be  true,  as  M.  de  Greef 
also  avers,  that  ^*  he  is  neither  Mongol  nor  Russian, 
neither  German,  nor  French,  nor  Belgian,  though  the 
blood  of  all  these  nations  flows  in  his  veins,"  it  is  equally 
true  that  his  works  have  long  since  ceased  to  belong  to 
Russia.  Born  in  1843,  he  contributed,  from  1869  to  1873, 
to  the  St.  Petersburg  Academic  Gazette y  and  supported 
Hberal  views.  He  was  removed  from  the  editorial  staff 
of  the  paper  by  the  personal  order  of  the  Tsar,  who 
replaced  the  opposition  writers  by  others  devoted  to  the 
Imperial  exchequer,  if  not  to  the  Imperial  cause.  A  short 
time  later,  his  second  and  last  work  in  the  Russian  lan- 
guage, on  the  History  of  Philosophy, \V2ls>  seized.  The  author 
had  previously  published  a  volume  of  Studies  on  Political 


438  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

Economy^  containing  a  critical  and  theoretical  explana- 
tion of  H.  C.  Carey's  Principles  of  Social  Science  and  Karl 
Marx's  Capital,  Since  he  has  lived  in  Paris,  De  Roberty 
has  only  written  in  French.  In  his  Notes  Sociologiques, 
published  (i 876-1 878)  in  the  Revue  de  Philosophie  Positive^ 
and  since  collected  into  a  book,  and  in  a  series  of  other 
volumes,  which  make  their  appearance  almost  annually 
— more  especially  in  his  Essai  sur  les  lois  generates  du 
developpement  de  la  Philosophie — he  has  expounded  the 
fundamental  idea  of  his  doctrine,  according  to  which 
philosophy  is  a  concrete  fact,  neither  purely  biological 
nor  purely  sociological,  the  constituent  elements  whereof 
must  be  studied  through  both  of  these  sciences.  The 
psychological  object,  that  is  to  say,  man  himself,  who  feels, 
and  thinks,  and  wills,  is  nothing  but  a  product  of  bio- 
logical and  sociological  conditions.  Psychology,  there- 
fore, should  be  regarded  as  an  appendage  to,  and  a 
prolongation  of,  sociology.  According  to  this  hypo- 
thesis, for  which  the  author  coins  the  adjective  ^^bio- 
social,"  and  which  M.  Izoulet  has  appropriated  in  his 
Modern  Cityy  society  ^^  creates  the  psychic  individual." 
But  what  M.  Izoulet  considers  a  revolution,  M.  de 
Roberty  believes  to  be  no  more  than  a  fresh  scien- 
tific classification.  Personally  I  fail  to  discover  what 
either  of  them  can  find  to  change  in  the  older  defi- 
nition given  by  Lewes  in  The  Physical  Basis  of  Mind 
(i860),  where  he  affirms  that  the  specially  human  faculties 
of  intelligence  and  consciousness  must  necessarily  be 
the  product  of  the  co-operation  of  social  and  biological 
factors.  This  idea  strikes  me  as  occurring  even  in  the 
teaching  of  a  much  older  philosopher,  of  the  name  of 
Jean  Jacques  Rousseau. 

Since  De  Roberty's  voluntary  departure  into  exile, 


V 


SOLOVIOV  439 

Vladimir  Soloviov  appears  to  me  the  only  Russian  who 
professes  an  independent  and  comparatively  original  form 
of  philosophy.  Born  in  1853,  the  son  of  the  famous 
historian,  and  brought  up  in  the  Ecclesiastical  Academy 
at  Moscow,  he  is  connected  by  hereditary  origin  with 
the  Orthodox  Church  and  the  Slavophil  party.  Since 
1888,  he  has  broken  with  both,  and  has  risen  in  revolt 
against  the  exclusively  national  theory  put  forward  by 
Danilevski  in  his  Russia  and  Europe  (3rd  edition,  1888). 
He  still  believes,  like  Dostoievski,  in  the  universality  of 
the  historic  mission  the  performance  of  which  devolves 
upon  his  country,  but  thinks  that  to  attain  its  realisation, 
through  the  universal  organisation  of  human  life  on  the 
lines  of  truth,  his  country  should  carry  out  Tchadaiev's 
theory,  sacrifice  itself,  and  consent  to  the  union  of  the 
Greco-Byzantine  and  the  Roman  Churches.  In  Solo- 
viov's  eyes,  the  Eastern  and  the  Western  worlds  repre- 
sent the  two  highest  phases  of  the  development  of  the 
human  organism  ;  Monism,  in  the  first,  fusing  together 
the  three  vital  principles,  feeling,  thought,  and  will ; 
Atomism,  in  the  second,  following  on  the  other,  decom- 
posing these  three  elements  of  life  into  science  and  art, 
and  stirring  them  up  to  conflict.  The  recomposition 
and  rearrangement  of  these  elements  into  a  third  and 
last  phase  of  historic  evolution,  calls  for  the  interven- 
tion of  a  superior  conciliating  principle.  And  this  must 
needs  be  the  destiny  of  the  Slavonic,  and,  more  parti- 
cularly, of  the  Russian  race,  the  only  one  free  from  all 
exclusiveness,  and  capable  of  rising  above  those  narrow 
interests  in  which  the  energies  of  other  nations  are 
absorbed. 

The  strong  opposition  with  which  the  philosopher's 

views  have  been  received  in  his  own  country,  would  seem 
29 


440  RUSSIAN  LITERATURE 

to  weaken  the  basis  on  which  he  claims  to  build  this 
fanciful  palace  of  our  human  future.  His  whilom  fellow- 
believers  of  the  Slavophil  party  have  shown  no  aptitude, 
so  far,  for  the  exemplification  of  the  "  conciliating  prin- 
ciple." The  total  absence  of  the  exclusive  spirit,  and  the 
abdication  of  every  individual  interest,  have  not  as  yet 
been  evident  and  characteristic  features  of  their  moral 
character.  And  the  would-be  reorganiser  of  the  human 
race  has  met  with  his  least  unfriendly  reception  in  Paris, 
where  his  two  great  works,  Russia  and  the  Universal 
Churchy  and  The  History  and  Future  of  Theocracy y  have 
both  been  published. 

All  these  things  are  only  a  fair  dream.  And  the  reality 
is  sad  enough.  Even  close  around  lasnaia  Poliana,  the 
wild  brambles  have  almost  overgrown  the  furrow  along 
which  the  great  toiler  still  drives  his  plough.  The  seed 
he  had  hoped  to  have  seen  sprouting  about  him  is  carried 
far  afield  towards  the  setting  sun,  to  a  less  barren  soil. 
.  .  .  But,  yet  again  I  say  it,  the  space  in  which  we  per- 
form our  little  task  is  but  a  tiny  spot  on  the  measureless 
face  of  what  shall  be.  And  the  last  sentence  of  this  book 
of  mine  shall  not  ring  with  a  note  of  despair.  From 
Pouchkine's  time  down  to  Tolstoi's,  Russia  lived  out 
certain  years  of  literary  activity  and  glory,  which  may 
be  reckoned  to  her  as  centuries.  Some  fresh  phase  of 
her  appointed  destiny,  so  full  of  suffering  and  of 
splendour,  will  some  day  bring  the  spirit  of  those  brief 
years  bac'k  to  her  again. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


I.  GENERAL  WORKS 

Outside  the  Russian  frontiers,  the  most  comprehensive  and  important 
work  has  been  written  in  German,  Geschichte  der  russischen  Literatur^ 
von  ihren  Anfangen  bis  auf  die  neueste  Zeit^  by  A.  von  Reinholdt 
(Leipzig,  1886,  I  vol.  8vo). 

The  most  complete  study  in  French,  up  to  the  present,  is  that  of 
C.  Courriere,  Histoire  de  la  Litteratiire  Contemporaine  eft  Russie 
(Paris,  1875,  I  vol.  i2mo).  The  works  of  M.  Ernest  Dupuy,  Les 
Grands  maitres  de  la  Litterature  Russe  au  XIX^^'"^  Siede  (Paris, 
1885,  I  vol.  i2mo),  and  of  M.  E.  M.  de  Vogue,  Le  Roman  Russe 
(Paris,  1897,  I  vol.  i8mo,  4th  edit.),  deal  almost  exclusively  with 
novel-writers.  M.  de  Vogue's  book,  however,  contains  some  general 
views  of  great  value.  Under  the  title  of  La  Litterature  Russe  (Paris, 
1892,  I  vol.  i2mo),  M.  L.  Leger  has  published  a  collection  of  extracts, 
with  short  commentaries. 

England  is  behindhand.  Yet  Prince  Volkonski's  studies  have 
recently  appeared  in  London,  under  the  title  Pictures  of  Russian  Life 
and  History.  There  is  a  German  edition  of  this  work,  and  a  French 
one  is  just  passing  through  the  press.  Some  additional  information 
will  be  found  in  an  older  work  by  Graham,  The  Progress  of  Art^ 
Science^  and  Literature  in  i?/^^i-z<2  (London,  1865,  i  vol.  8vo),  and  in 
those  of  Morfill,  i^z/jj-m  (London,  1881,  i  vol.  i2mo),  and  Slavonic 
Literature  (London,  1883,  i  vol.  i2mo). 

The  following  works  bear  indirectly  on  the  study  of  Russian  litera- 
ture :  in  French,  La  Russie,  a  collective  work,  by  MM.  A.  Leroy- 
Beaulieu,  A.  Rambaud,  E.  M.  de  Vogue,  and  A.  Vandal,  and  older 
works  by  Tardif  de  Mello  and  Gallet  de  Culture  ;  in  German,  the 
works  of  Brandes,  Eckard,  Houneger,  Minzloff,  Julian  Schmidt, 
Weddigen,  and  Zabel.  Those  of  Brandes  {Menschen  und  Werke, 
Frankfurt,  1885)  and  of  Schmidt  {Bilder  aus  dent  geistigen  Leben 
unserer  Zeit^  Leipzig,  1875)  are  particularly  admirable. 


442  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

In  Russia,  of  course,  the  field  is  much  wider.  It  was  opened  by 
Karamzine,  who  published  a  Pantheon  of  Russian  writers,  which  goes 
back  to  Nestor  and  the  legendary  figure  of  Boiane.  The  first  real 
attempt  at  literary  history  was  Grietch's  Opyt  Istorii  rousskoi  litiera- 
toiiri  (1822).  This  was  followed,  in  1839,  by  a  book  written  by 
Maximovitch,  in  which  he  is  accused  of  having  dwelt  on  that  which 
had  never  had  any  existence  ;  in  1846,  by  the  teachings  and  publica- 
tions of  Chevirev,  among  which  we  may  mention  a  History  o/Rtcssian 
Literature^  translated  into  Italian  by  Rubini  (Florence,  1862)  ;  between 
1 85 1  and  i860  we  have  Bousslaiev's  Essays  on  Comparative  Historical 
Criticism;  and  these  are  followed  by  the  works  of  Orestes  Miller 
(i860),  Galakhov  (i860),  Tikhonravov  (1878),  Porfiriev  (the  posthumous 
edition  of  his  works,  1891,  is  carried  down  to  Pouchkine),  Karaoulov 
(1865- 1 870),  Polevoi  (1883,  a  popular  work,  modelled  upon  Kurtz,  and 
the  best  of  its  kind),  Petrov  (translated  into  French  by  A.  Romald. 
Paris  and  St.  Petersburg,  1872,  &c.)  ;  Pypine's  History  of  Russian 
Literature  (now  in  course  of  publication,  three  volumes  have  already 
appeared)  is  the  last  and  the  best  book  of  the  series.  M.  Vladi- 
mirov  published  in  1898,  at  Kiev,  an  httroduction  to  the  History 
of  Russia?!  Literature  ( Vviedimie  v  istoriou  rousskoi  litieratouri)^ 
which  is  well  worth  consultation. 


II.  MONOGRAPHS. 
Various  Subjects. 

English. — The  annual  contributions  of  Krapotkine,  Milioukov, 
Bogdanovitch,  and  Balmont,  to  the  Athenaeum  (i 887-1 898). 

French. — Russes  et  Slaves^  by  L.  Leger  (Paris,  1893,  i  vol,  i2mo) ; 
Les  Poetes  Russes^  by  St.  Albin  (Paris,  1893,  i  vol.  i2mo)  ;  this 
anthology  is  worth  consulting. 

German. — Wolfsohn's  Die  Schonwissenschaftliche  Litteratur  der 
Russen  (Leipzig,  1893,  i  vol.  8vo). 

Russian. — Anidnkov's  Recollections  aiid  Critical  Sketches  ( Vospo- 
minania  i  Krititcheskiid  otcherki),  St.  Petersburg,  1 877-1 881,  3  vols. 
8vo  ;  Arseniev's  Critical  Studies  of  Russian  Literature  {Krititcheskiie 
etioudi  po  rousskoi  litieratourid\  St.  Petersburg,  1888,  2  vols.  8vo  ; 
Kirpitcbnikov's  Sketches  of  the  History  of  the  New  Russian  Litera- 
ture {Otcherki po  istorii  novoi  rousskoi  litieratouri\  St.  Petersburg, 
1896,  I  vol.  8vo  ;  Skabitchevski's  History  of  Recent  Russian  Litera- 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  443 

ture  {Istoria  novieichei  rousskoi  litieratouri\  St.  Petersburg,  1897, 
I  vol.  8vo,  and  the  works  of  Bourenine,  Cheine,  Golovine,  Gerbel, 
Ikonnikov,  Klioutchevski,  Maikov,  Mikhailovski,  Morozov,  Nieous- 
troiev,  Piatkovski,  Protopopov,  Pypine,  Soukhomlinov,  Strakhov, 
Tchernichevski,  Vietrinski,  Vengerov,  Viesielovski,  Vodovozov,  &c.  &c. 


Ancient  Literature  and  Popular  Poetry. 

English. — G  aster,  1 1  Chester  Lectures  on  Greco- Slavonic  Literature 
(London,  1887,  i  vol.  8vo)  ;  Naake,  Slavonic  Fairy-Tales  (London, 
1874,  I  vol.  8vo)  ;  and  Ralston's  Studies  of  Russian  Folklore^  which 
are  well  known  and  greatly  valued,  and  deserve  their  reputation. 

French. — A.  Rambaud,  La  Russie  Epique  (Paris,  1876,  i  vol. 
8vo),  a  most  important  work,  the  best  on  the  subject  by  any  foreign 
writer  ;  and  studies  by  Brunetiere,  Hins,  &c. 

German. — Hilferding,  Der  Gouv.  Olonez,  und  sei?te  Volksrhap- 
soden  {Russische  Revue ^  1872)  ;  Wollner,  Untersuchimgen  iiber  die 
Volksepik  der  Grossrussen  (Leipzig,  1879,  i  vol.  8vo)  ;  and  studies  by 
Bistrom,  Damberg,  Goldschmidt,  Jagie,  Leskien,  Viesielovski,  &c. 

Russia?!. — Bousslaiev,  Historical  Studies  of  Popular  Literature 
{Istoritcheskiie  otcherki  rousskoi  narod?toi  slovie'snosti),  St.  Petersburg, 
1861,  I  vol.  8vo  ;  Danilov,  Ancient  Russian  Poetry  {Drevnyia  rousskiia 
stikhotvorenia).,  St.  Petersburg,  various  editions,  with  notes  and  re- 
marks, the  latest  published  in  1897  ;  Jdanov,  The  Epic  Poetry  of  the 
Bylines  {Rousskii  bylevoi  epos),  St.  Petersburg,  1885,  i  vol.  8vo  ; 
Kirieievski,  Collection  of  Popular  Verse  {Piesni  Sovrannyia\  Moscow, 
1 868-1 874,  10  vols.  8vo  ;  Rybnikow,  Collection  of  National  Songs 
(Moscow,  1 861-1867,  4  vols.  8vo)  ;  and  the  writings  and  publica- 
tions of  Cheine,  Dahl,  Efimenko,  Erlenvein,  Khalanski,  Hilferding, 
Khoudiakov,  lachtchourjinski,  Kolmatchevski,  Lobody,  Maikov, 
Maksimovitch,  Miller,  Petrov,  Sneguirev,  Stassov,  Stepovitch,  &c. 


Period  of  Peter  the  Great. 

German. — Bruckner,  Iv.  Possochkov,  Ideen  und  Zustdnde  in  Russ- 
land,  zurZeit  Peters  des  Grossen  (Leipzig,  1878,  i  vol.  8vo). 

Russian. — Piekarski,  Science  and  Literature  in  Russia  under  Peter 
the  Great  {Naouka  i  litieratoura  v  Rossii  pri  PiStrie  V\  St.  Peters- 
burg, 1862,  2  vols.  8vo.  A  consultation  of  this  work  is  indispensable 
to  the  student. 


444  BIBLIOGRAPHY 


Period  of  Lomonossov. 

Russian. — Biliarski,  Materials  for  a  Biography  of  Lomonossov  (St. 
Petersburg,  1865,  i  vol.  8vo). 


Period  of  Catherine  II. 

Russian. — Niezi^lenov,  Novikov  and  the  Literary  Tendencies  of  the 
Period  of  Catherine  IT.  (^Novikov  i  litieratournyia  napravlenia  v. 
Ekatie'rinskoiou  epokhou\  St.  Petersburg,  1889,  i  vol.  8vo — a  very 
interesting  work  ;  and  the  writings  and  publications  of  Afanassiev, 
Grot,  Piekarski,  Soukhomlinov,  Viaziemski,  &c. 


Period  of  Joukovski  and  Karamzine. 

English. — Ralston,  The  great  Fabulist  Krilof  and  his  Fables 
(London,  1868,  i  vol.  8vo). 

French. — Fleury,  Krylov  et  ses  Fables  (Paris,  1869,  i  vol.  i2mo). 

German. — Seidlitz,  W.  A.  foukoffsky^  ein  russisches  Dichtersleben 
(Mittau,  1870,  I  vol.  8vo). 

Russian. — Grot,  Sketches  of  the  Life  attd Poetical  IVorks  offoukovski 
{Otcherki  jizni  i  poezii,  Qr^c),  St.  Petersburg,  1883,  published  by  the 
Second  Section  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  vol.  xxxii.  ;  Pogodine, 
JV.  M.  Karamzine^  as  shown  in  his  Works  and  Correspondence^  ^c. 
(Moscow,  1866,  I  vol.  8vo)  ;  and  the  works  of  Arkhangelsk!,  Pletniev, 
Pypine,  Sertchevski  (on  Griboiedov,  &c.). 

Period  of  Pouchkine. 

English. — Turner,  Studies  in  Russian  Literature  (London,  1882, 
I  vol.  8vo).  Translations  of  various  selected  portions  of  Pouchkine's 
works,  with  notes  and  commentaries,  have  been  published  by  Buchan 
Telfer  (1875),  Lewis  (1849),  Turner  (1899),  Wilson  (1887),  and  "A 
Russian  Lady"  (Princess  Bariatinski),  1882.  Pouchkine's  prose 
works  have  been  translated  by  Mrs.  Sutherland  Edwards  and  Mr.  T. 
Keane. 

Fre7ich. — Prosper  Merimee,  Portraits  historiqucs  et  litteraires 
(Paris,  1874,  I  vol.  i2mo).  There  are  numerous  translations,  both 
French  and  German,  of  Pouchkine's  works.  The  best  are  those  of 
Tourgueniev  and  Viardot. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  445 

German. — Varnhagen  von  Ense,  Werke  von  A.  Pouchkine 
{Jahrbiicher  fur  luissenschaftliche  Kritik^  October  1838) ;  Konig, 
Bilder  aus  der  Russischen  Litieraiur  {hei^n^,  1838,  i  vol.  8vo). 

Russian. — The  most  complete  biography  of  Pouchkine  is  that  in 
the  first  volume  of  Anienkov's  edition  of  his  works  (St.  Petersburg, 
1 854-1 857,  7  vols.  8vo).  The  first  supplements  to  the  incomplete 
texts  of  the  Russian  editions  appeared  in  Herzen's  Polar  Star.  Since 
that  time  Gerbel  has  published  a  whole  volume  of  supplementary 
matter.  A  bibliography  of  works  specially  concerning  the  great  poet 
has  been  issued  by  Miejov  (St.  Petersburg,  1886,  i  vol.  8vo).  The 
studies  of  Korch  (very  important  from  the  technical  standpoint), 
Niezieldnov,  Spasovitch,  and  V.  N.  (Nikolski),  should  also  be  con- 
sulted. 

Period  Posterior  to  the  Time  of  Gogol. 

English. — Gosse,  Studies  of  Gontcharov  and  Tolstoi,  prefixed  to 
the  English  translations  of  some  of  their  works  (London,  1891  and 
1894) ;  Ralston,  The  Modern  Russian  Drama,  Ostrovsky's  Plays 
(^Edinburgh  Review.^  July  1868).  Henry  James,  Study  of  Tour- 
gueniev,  in  Partial  Portraits.,  1888.  The  majority  of  the  works  of 
Tourgueniev,  Tolstoi,  and  Dostoievski  have  been  translated  into 
English,  French,  and  German.  Much  remains  to  be  done  in  this 
particular  for  the  other  novelists  and  poets  of  this  period. 

French. — P.  Bourget,  Nouveaux  essais  de  Psychologie  Contem- 
poraine),  Paris,  1885,  i  vol.  i2mo — (Study  of  Tourgudniev)  ;  Bobory- 
kine,  Tourgueniev,  Notes  d^un  Compatriote  {Revue  Independante, 
December  1884),  and  various  other  studies  by  Delaveau,  Durand- 
Greville,  Hennequin,  E.  M.  de  Vogue,  &c. 

G^^rw^w.— Bodenstedt,  M.  Ler7nontoff' s poetischer  Nachlass  (Berlin, 
1852,  I  vol.  8vo)  ;  Loewenfeld,  Leo  N.  Tolstoi,  sein  Leben,  seine 
Werke  .  .  .  (Berlin,  1892,  i  vol.  8vo)  ;  Zabel,  T.  Tourgueniev,  eine 
literarische  Studie{'LG\^z\g,  1884) ;  and  the  works  of  Althaus,  Brandos, 
Eckardt,  Ernst,  Glogau,  Seuron,  Thorsch,  Zabel,  &c. 

Russian. — Anienkov,  Recollections  and  Correspondence,  1835- 1885 
(St.  Petersburg,  1892,  i  vol.  8vo) ;  Barssoukov,  Life  and  Works  of 
Pogodine  (Moscow,  1880)— in  course  of  publication— a  collection  of 
documents  of  the  deepest  interest  to  the  student  of  this  period,  and 
that  preceding  it ;  Miller,  Russian  Writers  Subsequent  to  Gogol 
{Rousskiid  pisatieli  poslie  Gogola),  St.  Petersburg,  1 888-1 890,  3  vols. 
8vo  ;  Pypine,  Bielinski,  His  Life  and  Correspondence  (St.  Petersburg, 


446  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1876,  2  vols.  8vo)  ;  Tchernichevski,  Sketches  of  Literary  History  in 
the  Time  of  Gogol  {Otcherki  Gogolevskavo  perioda  .  .  .\  St.  Peters- 
burg, 1 89 1,  I  vol.  8vo  ;  and  the  studies  of  Akssakov  (on  Tioutchev), 
Andreievski,  Boulkhakov  (on  Tolstoi),  Bourenine  (on  Tourgueniev), 
Gromeko  (on  Tolstoi),  Koulich  (on  Gogol),  Koloubovski  (supplemen- 
tary to  Herveg-Heinze's  History  of  Modern  Philosophy  (St.  Peters- 
burg, 1890),  Livov  (on  Katkov),  Serguienko  (on  Tolstoi),  Smirnov  (on 
Herzen),  Soloviov  (on  Dostoievski),  and  Zielinski  (on  Tolstoi).  The  best 
edition  of  Gogol,  with  notes  and  commentaries,  is  that  of  Tikhonravov 
(St.  Petersburg,  1889).  The  complete  edition  of  Ostrovski's  works 
(St.  Petersburg,  18S9,  10  vols.  8vo)  includes  a  biography  of  the 
playwright,  by  A.  Nos.  That  of  Dostoievski's  works  (St.  Petersburg, 
1883,  14  vols.  8vo)  contains  some  Recollections  of  the  novelist,  by 
N.  Strakhov.  The  complete  edition  of  Chtchedrine's  works,  published 
by  Pypine  and  Arseniev  (St.  Petersburg,  1889,  3  vols.  8vo),  is  pre- 
faced by  a  life  of  the  writer,  by  C.  Arseniev.  The  Russian  editions  of 
Tolstoi  and  Tourgueniev  may  be  counted  up  in  dozens. 


INDEX 


Ablessimov,  105 

Afanassiev,  218 

Akhcharoumov,  203 

Akssakov,    I.,    102,    195-197,    210, 

214,  413 
Akssakov,    C,   102,    195,   197,   203, 

213 

Akssakov,  S.,  251,  330,  331 

Alexander  I.,  128-132 

Alov,  pseudonym  of  Gogol,  248 

Bacmeister,  97 

Bakounine,  224,  285,  306 

Baier,  54 

Baratinski,  180-181 

Baliouchkov,  129,  147,  1 76 

Barsov,  67 

Barteniev,  434 

Bernoulli,  124 

Bestoujev,  190,  246 

Bezobrazov,  433 

Bezsonov,  42 

Bielinski,  105,  195,  197-203,  300 

Bilbassov,  434 

Bilfinger,  85 

Bloch,  433 

Boborikine,  294,  295,  425 

Bogdanovitch,  10,  114 

Boltine,  126 

Bondarev,  391 

Borovikovski,  329 

Boulgarine,  1 89 

Bouniakovski,  433 


Bourenine,  417 
Bousslaiev,  218 
Bova,  Legend  of  ,  II 
Buschen,  433 

Catherine   II.,    46,    79,    '^'],    Z%- 

99 
Chakhofskoi,  Prince,  85,  182 
Chevirev,  196 
Chevtchenko,  220 
Chichkov,  108,  135 
Chouvalov,  70,  74,  82,  107,  no 
Chtchedrine  (Saltykov),  41,    79,  253, 

299»  309-319,  399 
Chtcherbatov,  Prince,  125,  126 
Chtchoukine,  405 

Dachkov,    Princess,    96,    123-127, 

308 
Dahl,  246 

Danilevski,  297,  439 
Danilov  (Kircha),  10,  85 
Danilov,  lO 
Delwig,  157,  179-180 
Dierjavine,  105,  106-II2 
Dievnitski,  124 
Dmitriev,  84,  109,  1 40 
Dmiirievski,    84 
Dobrolioubov,  6,  1 76,  205,  274 
Dolgoroukaia,  Princess,  85-87 
Domostro'i,  the,  36,  54,  59 
Dostoievski,    F.,    4,    46,     102,    1 66, 

200,  309,  330-360 


448 


INDEX 


Dragomanov,  309 
Droujinine,  203 

Edelsohn,  203 
Emine,  113 

Fadieiev,  308 

Feodorov,  36 

Fiodorov,  329 

Foeth,  415 

Fotii  (the  Metropolitan),  35 

Frol  SkobUiev^   The   Adventures  of, 

45.89 
Frug,  417 

Gagarine,  308 

Galakhov,  208 

Garchine,  421 

Gmeline,  74 

Gnieditch,  68 

Gogol,   21,  46,  99,   113,    143,    197, 

200,  246-265 
Golikov,  126 

GonteBarov,  165,  200,  265-270,  309 
Granovski,  209,  348 
Griboiedov,  182-188 
Grietch,  189 
Giigoriev,  178,  203 
Grigorovitch,  200,  270,  298 

Hagemeister,  433 

Halmersen,  433 

Herzen,  41,  195,  200,  222,  283,  299, 

301-309,  405 
Hilarion  (the  Metropolitan),  31 
Hilferding,  10 

Iaiiontov,  329 

lelaguine,  126,  308 

Igor^  The  Band  of ,  lO,  13,  25,  29 

Ilia  de  Mourotn,  The  Legend  of,  10 

Ismailov,  113 

Ismai\v:;d,  31 

Ivan  the  Terrible,  37 


JANSON,  433 
Javorski,  51-54 
Jemtchoujnikov,  410 
Joachim,  32 

Joukovski,   108,   129,    142-146,   161, 
324 

Kalatchov,  218 

Kamienski,  435 

Kantemir,  54,  60,  141 

Kapnist,  21,  103,  109 

Karamzine,  104,  108,  126,  129,  133- 

140,  170,  210,  435 
Katchenovski,  190 
Katkov,  221,  224-226,  286 
Kaveline,  213,  218,  308 
Khalanski,  ii 
Khemnitzer,  114 
Kheraskov,  68,  112,  1 15 
Khliebnikov,  32 
Khomiakov,  195,  2io,  211,  308 
Khvochtchinskaia,        Mme.,        309, 

433 
Kircha  Danilov.     See  Danilov 
Kirieievski,  I.,  202,  210,  215 
Kirieievski,    P.,    10,    23,    195,    21 1, 

221 

Klioutcharev,  iii 
Klioutchevski,  434 
Klioutchnikov,  198 
Kniajnine,  103,  115 
Kochelev,  308 
Koltsov,  200,  244,  298,  416 
Koni,  359 
Korch,  179 
Korolienko,  422,  425 
Kostomarov,  218,  221,  296 
Kostrov,  112 
Kotielnikov,  70 
Kotochikhine,  41 
Koulich,  220 
Koukolnik,  190,  246,  296 
Kourbski,  Prince,  38,  39 
Kourotchkine,  410 


INDEX 


449 


Kovalevski,  405,  406,  43$ 

Kozitski,  70,  82,  92 

Krachennikov,  70 

Krapotkine,  Prince,  309 

Krassov,  198 

Krestovski,  V.,  433 

Krestovski,     pseudonym     of    Mme. 

Khvochtchinskaia,  310 
Krijanitch,  41 
Krylov,  21,  136,  147,  149-163,  I79 

Lajetchnikov,  246,  296 

Lapoukhine,  122 

Lavrov,  308 

Leontiev,  226 

Lermontov,  227-239 

Lieskov,  399  • 

Lomonossov,  67,  69,  71,  75,  76,  yS, 

81,  105 
Loukine,  103 
Lvov,  109 

Magnitski,  72 

Maikov,  V.  I.,  114 

Maikov,  A.,  413-415 

Maksinnov,  41 

Manouilov,  435 

Margarita  34 

Marlinski,  pseudonym  of  Bestoujev, 

190 
Matvieiev,  263 
Maximus  the  Greek,  35 
Mechtcherski,  Prince,  352 
Melchine,  341 
Merechkovski,  409 
Miedviediev,  46 
Mielnikov,  298 
Mietchnikov,  406 
Mikhailov,    pseudonym   of   Scheller, 

309 
Mikhailovski,  404 
Milioukov,  404-405,  435 
Minski,  417 
Mordvinov,  131 


Morochkine,  217 
Moussine-Pouchkine,  25,  1 26 
Muller,  85,  124 

Nachtchokine,  85 

Nadiejdine,  155,  195,  284 

Nadsohn,  417 

Nekrassov,   200,  201,  245,  323-329, 

410 
Nepanov,  pseudonym  of  Chtchedrine, 

309 

Nestor,  27,  32 

Nicone  (the  Patriarch),  40 

Nicone,  Chronicles  of,  34 

Niebolchine,  433 

Niedooumko,  pseudonym  of  Nadiej- 
dine, 195 

Nikifor,  196 

Nikitine,  244 

Nossov,  84 

Novikov,  10,  90,  91,  94,  1 18-123 

Novitski,  395 

Odo'ievski,  245 

Ogariov,  245 

Omoulevski,  pseudonym  of  Fiodorov, 

329 
Onieguine,  406 
Ostrovski,  244,  271-277 
Oustrialov,  217 
Ozieretskovski,  124 
Ozierov,  141-142 

Pabiedonostsov,  433 

Pallia,  31 

Pallas,  97 

Panaiev,  201 

Pavlov,  246 

Paul  I.,  103,  130 

Perepielski,  pseudonym  of  Nekrassov, 

325 
Peter  the  Great,  47 
Pietcherski,  pseudonym  of  Mielnikov, 

298 


450 


INDEX 


Pietrachevski,  301,  336 

Pietrov,  112 

Pirogov,  206 

Pissarev,  203,  207 

Pissemski,  41,  277,  319-323 

Pletniev,  260 

Pogodine,  218,  219,  246 

Poletika,  82 

Polevoi,  155,  190,  246 

Polikarpov,  41 

Polonski,  416 

Pclotski,  44,  46,  72 

Pomialovski,  309 

Popov,  10,  67,  70 

Possochkov,  54,  59 

Potapienko,  425-426 

Pouchkine,    21,  28,   67,    75,   77,  80, 

105,  108,   III,  118,  147,  154-179, 

195,  200,  228,  249,  258,  410 
Prokopovitch,  51,  60 
Protassov,  116,  124 
Proutkov    (Kouzma),    pseudonym    of 

A.  Tolstoi  and  of  Jemtchoujnikov, 

410 
Pypine,  208,  404,  408,  435 

Radichtchev,  91,  116 

Razoumovski,  70 

Rekhmaninov,  1 15 

Roberty,  De,  405 

Rostoptchine,  Countess  Eudoxia,  245 

Rostoptchine,  Countess  Lydia,  406 

Rovinski,  221 

Rybnikov,  lo 

Ryleiev,  132,  133,  157,  185 

Rtychtchev,  40 

Sakharov,  13 
Saltykov.     See  Chtchedrine 
Samarine,  210,  212,  308 
Saveliev-Rostislavitch,  217 
Scheller,  309 
Schilder,  General,  434 
Schlozer,  85 


Schwartz,  113,  114,  12 1 

Senkovski,  189 

Serebrianski,  240 

Serguienko,  364 

Siemievski,  434 

Silvestre,  the  Pope,  36,  274 

Skabitchevski,  404 

Skalkovski,  406 

Slieptsov,  309 

Smirnova,  Mme.,  281 

Smotrytski,  40,  72 

Sokolov,  124 

Soloviov,  S.,  218,  296 

Soloviov,  N. ,  203 

Soloviov,  v.,  408 

Sophiiski'i    Vrdinien7tik,     Annals    of 

Sophia,  34 
Soumarokov,  69,  75,  78-85j  ^^j  ^^S' 

114 
Soutaiev,  395 
Spasowicz,  403 
Speranski,  131,  132 
Sreznievski,  ii 
Staehlin,  76 

Stankievitch,  197,  202,  240,  299 
Stebnitski,    pseudonym   of  Lieskov, 

400 
Strakhov,  124 
Sviatoslav,  30 

Tatichtchev,  32,  54,  56,  58,  61,  62 

Tchadaiev,  156,  191-196,  405 

Tchekhov,  254,  403,  426-432 

Tchernichevski,  203 

Tchij,  358 

Tchoubinski,  433 

Tchoulkov,  113 

Thorner,  433 

Tikhonravov,  208 

Timofieiev,  36 

Tioutchev,  41 1-4 13 

Tolstoi,  'L.,^5,  122,  197,249,   273, 
309,  33^,  343,  3'^o-399,  420 


INDEX 


451 


Touptala,  Danilo,  St.  Dmitri  of  Ros- 
tov, 41 

Tourgueniev,  I.,  18,  46,  155,  200, 
243,  277,  278-297,  309,  322,  340, 
370 

Tourgueniev,  N.,  131 

Trebotarev,  124 

Trediakovski,  66,  72,  73,  82,  104 

Tretiakov,  124 

Valouiev,  210,  212 
Vasska,  son  of  Bousslai,  Legend  of, 

19 
Veneline,  217 
Veniaminov,  124 
Verevkine,  115 
Vietrinski,  308 
Volkov,  79,  84 


Volynski,  404 

Von-Visine,    87,    96,    98-102,    1 15, 

242 
Vorontsov,  408 
Vosskressenskdia,     Chronicle     called ^ 

34 
Vyroubov,  406 

Weltmann,  246 

Zabieline,  218 
Zagoskine,  246,  296 
Zablotski-Diessiatovski,  433 
Zassoulitch,  Vera,  309 
Zlaiooust,  31 
Zotov,  296 
Zouiev,  124 
Zybeline,  124,  218 


OF      _ 

UNIVERSITY 

califob^ 


THE  END 


